Piening For The Ones We Can't Save
by Lampito
Summary: Dean is devastated by what they have to do to finish a job. Sam tries to be understanding - "We can't save them all, bro."  Maybe if Dean can save just one, this devout Student Of Pie will feel a little bit better. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Not entirely sure where this came from, although I have my suspicions *frowns at elf*.

**DISCLAIMER:** Nothing from Supernatural is mine. I'm cool with that. The cost of running that car alone would put a serious dent in my chocolate money.

**TITLE:** Piening For The Ones We Can't Save

**RATING:** T to be safe, until such time as Dean takes to using sign language.

**SUMMARY:** Dean is devastated by what they have to do to finish a job. Sam tries to be supportive - "You can't save them all." If he can save just one, though, maybe that will make this devout Student Of Pie feel better.

**SETTING:** Set in the Jimiverse, anytime after Zan and Tiem the gargoyles have arrived to guard Singer Salvage.

**FAULT:** Blame for all my fanfics lies **completely** with the Denizens, Visitors and Casual Dropper-Inerers of the Jimiverse, who keep leaving kind reviews, helpful critiques and strident demands for more gargoyles, G.W.N. (Gratuitous Winchester Nudity), scientifically enquiring nerd angels and cranky prudish werewolves. Honestly, don't you people have homes to go to?

* * *

><p>"I can't do it." The statement was flat, final, and defeated. Dean's voice was broken, barely a whisper. "Don't ask me to do this, Sammy. Not this."<p>

"We have to Dean, we have to," Sam told him softly, putting a hand on his big brother's shoulder, feeling the wretched misery wash off him, "There's no reason you have to be here to see this. If you want to go wait in the car, I'll… finish here."

Jimi whined, sensing his Alpha's distress, then butted his big, square head reassuringly against Dean's leg with a gentle woof of support. _Your Pack is here. You are not alone. _

"No." Dean looked up, eyes shimmering with unshed tears, but face determined. That ridiculous streak of macho in him wouldn't let him walk away, no matter how much distress he was in. "I can't just run screaming like a whiny little bitch. Give me the lighter."

Sam hesitated, on the verge of telling his brother, his big, overprotective, idiot brother that he was okay, it was okay, it was all right to be, well, not all right, and that he understood (well really no, he didn't, but that wasn't what Dean needed to hear right now), and it didn't make him think any less of his lifelong protector… he saw his brother's expression again, and thought better of it, wordlessly handing over the lighter.

"We can't save them all," he said instead. Numbly, Dean nodded, flicked the lighter, and tossed it.

The flame was a bright, cheerful blue and orange flicker in the darkness, racing quickly along the liberal trail of fuel, and moving greedily on to the rest of the small shop. They'd burn. In brilliant, cleansing fire, they'd all burn. And it would be over.

Dean drew a shuddering breath, and Sam put an arm around him, risking an accusation of chick-flickery to steer his brother back towards the Impala. "Come on," he urged, "We gotta get out of here now. The job's done."

"Yeah," agreed Dean in a detached voice, "It's done. It's over." He stood with his hand on the car door, unable to tear his eyes away from the cheerful dart and dance of flames behind the windows of Grandma Gracie's Perfect Pies & Pastries. He was sure he could already smell nutmeg and cinnamon in the air.

"I hope she burns in Hell," he rumbled dangerously, "For what she did, she deserves to spend eternity in the Pit."

"Damn straight," agreed Sam. That was something that they definitely agreed on: dear old Grandma Gracie, the witch who had been using her pie shop to distribute cursed pastries, did indeed deserve to be held accountable for her actions.

Her pies had been good, too, seriously good; the Winchesters had visited the establishment a number of times during their research into the case, and each time, she'd dished up something better than the last. Pecan, key lime, apple and cinnamon, apricot, cherry, culminating with the most wonderful lemon curd pie Dean had ever tasted. He'd been ready to fall to his knees, and beg to sit at her feet, be allowed to listen to her teachings so that he, a humble Student Of Pie, might learn to better worship that most heavenly of pastries.

Sam thought that she deserved Hell because she'd deployed evil spells that had turned men into statues, sculptures, garden gnomes and tasteful coffee table ornaments, out of vindictiveness for perceived slights or just for her own vicious amusement at their expense.

Dean thought that she deserved Hell because she'd used pie – she'd used _pie_! – to dispense her various curses. She'd taken pie – such pie! – perfect, delicious, wonderful pie, and perverted it, desecrated it, profaned, corrupted, _prostituted_ it, to evil ends. As a rule, he was in favour of prostitution in general terms, but not if it involved violating pie. Well, except for that one particularly interesting House of Ill Repute he'd visited in Nevada once, it had been cherry pie, too, but that wasn't the point, the point was, the point _was_, she'd taken innocent, marvellous pastries and used them in the most evil, depraved, perverse, sick way anyone could imagine. Although the place in Nevada probably counted as just a bit depraved, not quite depraved enough to be kinky, not that he _minded_ kinky, but the point was, the point _was_, okay, the point _was_ that witch had fucked with pie and deserved to die for it. The whole turning guys into decorations did nothing to help her case.

He took one last look at the small shop, burning cheerfully, and tried not to imagine the rows of pies, plump and heavy with generous filling, as they burned, their light, flaky, golden pastry scorching and cracking, their flavoursome, tangy, home-made fillings with no canned ingredients bubbling, boiling, curdling, bursting out of their cases to dribble and clot and be seared away by the flames…

"I know you didn't want to torch the shop, bro," Sam broke into his thoughts, "But it was the best way to make sure we got everything, and destroyed any evidence." He hefted the books he'd taken from the witch's altar before they'd fired the place. "I think Bobby will be interested in these."

"I don't suppose one of them is a recipe book?" Dean asked hopefully. "How the hell she got that cheesecake pie like that…"

" 'Fraid not," answered Sam, flipping through one of the volumes. "Although you'll have to check with Bobby. We should get moving."

Dean stared wistfully at the flames. "I hope they didn't suffer," he sighed, starting the car.

"Dean?" said Sam gently.

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"Dean, they're just pies, bro, and I think you might be over-reacting just a bit."

Dean put the car into drive, and pulled out onto the tar. "Sam," he growled, "I do not think it would be possible, in a single lifetime, for me to tell you exactly how much is so very, very wrong with the statement you just made."

However, for the two hours they drove before he deemed them far enough away to stop, he tried.

By the time the Impala pulled off the road and into the lot of a motel of their usual cruddy standard, Sam was ready to agree with anything Dean said. He was ready to agree that pie was indeed a divine foodstuff, pie was clearly created by a Higher Intelligence, pie was not just a snack but a way of life, pie was in charge of the universe, Hail Holy Pie (he crossed himself to show willing), pie could probably fix most of the political upheaval in the world if the key players would just sit down together and eat enough, pie had the power to fix anything from a seized engine to bubonic plague, pie is love and love is pie, it doesn't count as a cult because there's no chanting or orgies or poisoned Kool-Aid although it would be a worthy cause for instigating an orgy like that place in Nevada, he would willingly devote his life to pie, there is no Sam, only pie…

"Dean! Shut! Up!" he finally burst out, one eye twitching, "Shut up about PIE!"

"Whoa, you on your man-period, Sam?" asked Dean, apparently recovered from the gut-wrenching experience of having to set fire to a shop full of pies. "You know, pie can help with that – it's comfort food, and it satisfies the cravings for carbohydrate, in fact a piece of pumpkin pie may…"

"Just… can you just not talk about pie any more?" pleaded Sam.

Dean looked surprisingly understanding. "Sure thing, Sam," he agreed, hefting his bag out of the car, "I understand. What we had to do tonight was pretty traumatic. But if you don't want to talk about it yet, that's fine. When you do, I'll be right here for you, bro." He clapped Sam on the back with a compassionate smile, and headed into their room.

Sam blinked twice, and sighed. Jimi hovered by his leg, whuffing sympathetically. Sam patted the dog on the head.

"You're going to miss him when I have to murder Dean, aren't you?" he said to Jimi, "When I am tragically forced to stick an apple in his mouth, and shove cloves into every orifice, then stab him fatally with a dessert fork. I'll need your help to dig a hole to get rid of the evidence, because it will really mess with any poor coroner who's forced to try to figure out what happened…"

They settled into their room for the night with the usual bickering about everything from shower access, hot water usage and doing laundry. ("You agreed half an hour ago that you'd do the laundry." "Dean, you were brainwashing me with your stupid cult of pie indoctrination, I would have agreed to shave my head and commit a suicide bombing on a sushi bar if I'd thought it would have made you shut up.")

When Sam finally disappeared into the bathroom with a parting shot of Bitchface #7™ (You Can Be Impossibly Unreasonable Dean, You Know That?), Dean carefully extracted something from his bag. He hadn't had time to pack it as carefully as he would have liked, and he hoped it hadn't suffered any real damage…

He sat the box on the small counter top, and opened it. His face lit up with a smile.

The family-sized blackberry and apple pie sat there, intact and looking delicious.

He couldn't save them all, he knew that. But he'd saved this one. If he was feeling generous, he might even share it with his brother.

He put the pie into the small refrigerator, and climbed into bed, feeling just a little happier about the state of things.

* * *

><p>I think it stands as a one-shot, but if the Update Inspiration Fairy gets back from holidays, I might even try to do something with it. The name may change accordingly. Nudity, gargoyles and angels, oh my...<p>

Reviews are the Big Globs Of Double Cream on the Blueberry Pie Of Life!


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah, well, I think everybody already spotted where this is going...

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

Sam barely registered the sound of the Impala pulling back into the lot; he frowned at his laptop, trying to pull the pieces of information together for what he suspected might be shaping up to be their next case.

"Mornin' Sammy!" chirped Dean, as his Strut Of Smug Self-Satisfaction (because Dean Winchester_ never_ did a Walk Of Shame) brought him breezing back into their room.

"It's now officially afternoon," Sam corrected.

"Whatever. I thought you'd be nerding it up at the library," continued Dean.

"Nah, the wifi's good here. Unsecured router," answered Sam, following another link.

"Yeah, but there's no hot librarians here," argued Dean.

"How do you know that there'd be hot librarians at the library?" asked Sam, not looking up.

"Because, where else are you going to start your search for hot librarians?" asked Dean. "Librarians. They hang around libraries. Therefore, you should look for them at libraries. QED."

Sam paused, his head trying to catch up with Dean's libidinous logic. "That assumes the presence of hot librarians, or rather, it presumes hotness of librarians. Librarians hang around libraries, but there's no way to know before hand whether the librarians are hot."

"That's why you have to go and check them out," Dean told him, sounding exasperated.

"No, it doesn't work like that," insisted Sam, pulling his note pad and pen towards himself. "Look, suppose this is the universe of discourse," he drew a large rectangle, "And this is the set Library," he drew a large circle. "Now, the set Librarians will consist of the subsets Male Librarians and Female Librarians, and will intersect with Library, because not all librarians will be located at a library at any one time. Then, we have the set Hotness, which intersects with both Library and Librarians," he drew more circles. "Note that Readers, a subset of Library, may also intersect with Hotness. And possibly also with Librarians, because there may be a librarian who has come to visit the library on a day off," he drew a small extension of the circle, "In addition, that off-duty librarian may or may not also fit into the set Hotness, then there's the set Students, which might intersect with…"

"You see, this is the problem right here, Sam," sighed Dean, "You sit here, drawing diagrams of intersections, when you should be out there, looking for a woman to intersect with." He took Sam's pen, and drew a new set labelled 'Sam' on the diagram. It intersected with 'Hot Female Librarians On Or Off Duty Located At The Library'. It was shaped alarmingly like a certain feature of male anatomy. "There. Like that. You need to get laid, Sam."

"Dean, you get enough tail for both of us," grumbled Sam. "Speaking of which, did you even shower? You stink of sex."

"I stink of manly sweat, and healthy, enjoyable exertion," corrected Dean. "Also this weird liniment stuff. It smells funny, but it works. My trick shoulder went twang after she _yonkyo_-ed me."

"She did what?" asked Sam, breaking his usual rule about never encouraging Dean to talk about his erotic escapades.

"She _yonkyo_-ed me." He grinned. "She's an aikido student. She was at the bar to celebrate passing her grading. It's all about using an opponent's mass against them. It was strangely enjoyable being thrown face-down on the rug by a naked woman…"

"Dean…"

"Then she _irime-nage_-d me, by the _ura waza_…"

"Dean…"

"…And _morote-dori_-ed my _tanken_…

"Dean…"

"I had no idea those belts were so long! The knot's kinda attractive, tied properly. Symmetrical. Aesthetically pleasing. It was long enough for her to tie my…"

"DEAN!" barked Sam, with a look of unadulterated Bitchface #6™ (I SO Do NOT Want To Hear The Gory Details Of One Of Your Sexual Conquests, Jerk). "Shut! Up!" It never failed to astonish him, just how annoying Dean could be when he was cheerful. Post-conquest, he was as annoying as a toddler at a supermarket register lined with chocolates containing noisy toys.

"All that sexual frustration is clearly taking its toll, Sam," observed Dean sympathetically. "Look, I brought you lunch, thought we should eat before we hit the road."

Sam peered suspiciously at what turned out to be a chicken salad. "Bobby's keen to get a look at these books," he said, poking a plastic fork at what looked like it might once have been part of a cucumber, "Thinks one of 'em might be a text on Summonings he's been after for a while. It's really interesting, looks like seventeeth century."

"Well, I guess if a nerdgasm over a book is as close as you're going to get, I'll just have to be content with that," said Dean sadly.

When they'd finished, Sam reached for his coffee. "Hey, I got something that'll go perfectly with that," smiled Dean, heading for the tiny kitchenette. He triumphantly brought forth a box, and put it reverently on the table, opening it with great ceremony. "Ta-daaaaah!"

"It's a pie," commented Sam, watching as Dean wiped his knife on a napkin and used it to cut the proffered pastry.

"Well, at least we know your eyes are still working, even if your dick isn't," his brother answered, manoeuvring a generous slice out of the box. "Here, have this, it will make everything better."

"Dean, I'm not as fond of pie as you are," began Sam, as Dean cut his own slice and took a large bite, making the sort of noises Sam usually only heard when Dean was having one of _those_ dreams.

"Oh, God, Sam," he moaned, "This is fantastic. You have to try some. Seriously, dude, I think my tonsils just came."

Sam tried to put that dreadful mental picture out of his mind, and prodded at the slice of pie before him. It did look inviting: the crust was golden and hinted at crisp, crumbly goodness. The filling was dark, and glistening, oozing just a little. The smell was enticing.

"Go on, vegiesaurus," prompted Dean, "It's apple and blackberry. Fruit, Sam, it's fruit. You eat fruit. It's good for you."

Sam picked up the slice, and took a modest bite.

The taste exploded in his mouth. It was… delicious. It was beyond delicious. It was… patent pastry perfection.

"This _is_ fantastic," he said in amazement, enjoying the way the buttery, rich crust complemented the tart-yet-sweet tang of the filling.

"Told you so!" smirked Dean, shoving the rest of his piece into his mouth and reaching for the knife again. "Want some more?"

"Yeah, it's really good."

All too soon, the decadent, delightful, devilishly delicious dessert was devoured. Dean burped hugely, and smiled, sated. "I'll make a Student of Pie out of you yet, Sam."

Sam burped too, and smiled back. "You feed me pie like that, and you might just succeed." He stood up and picked up the empty box. "You go shower, then we can get going," he instructed.

"You have done well, my young Pie Padawan," smirked Dean, heading for the bathroom.

When he heard the shower start running, Sam licked the foil pie tin clean before throwing it out.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

They arrived at Singer Salvage after dark, slowing at the gates to wave up to the gargoyles atop the gates.

"Hiya big boy, you handsome rogue, keeping that thing in shape, I hope."

"Hey there, we're back. Forecast's fine for tomorrow, we can do some reading."

The one on the left-hand gate didn't move, but Sam thought he might've caught a shy little wave from the one on his side.

Bobby came out to meet them, and they stood and laughed as they watched Jimi reunite with his mother Rumsfeld and his sister Janis. As she always did, Rumsfeld immediately seized him by the neck, and pulled him down to ground level, to begin washing his ears and face. He let out a sad whine, and rolled big brown imploring eyes towards his Hunters, but his mother held him firmly in place.

"Hey, J-Man," Dean called to him, "You're twice her size now, just tell her you don't want a bath."

"It aint quite that simple, boy," grinned Bobby. Rumsfeld curled her lip in a warning snarl when Jimi tried to move; with a pained humph, he dropped back to the ground, head held between her paws. "She's his Mom, and to her, he'll always be a little puppy who's afraid of thunderstorms."

As the humans went inside, the gargoyles on the gate watched them go.

"I'm so glad they're back," chirped Zan, turning a somersault in the air and landing back on his gate as he often did when he was excited, "Last time, Taller started showing me his 'computer'. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

"Hmmmmmm," sighed Tiem, gazing dreamily at the Impala, sitting in the yard and ticking as it cooled. "Helloooo, gorgeous, I hope that Shorter has been looking after you, you magnificent Earth-formed item."

"You're quite fond of Impala, aren't you?" noted Zan, grinning at his brother.

"She's… beautiful," Tiem replied wistfully. "I bet if I touched her right now, she'd still be warm…" he looked forlornly at his stone talons – he'd never dared to approach the car, for fear of damaging her. "Never mind, O Ferrous Goddess, know that I worship you from afar, though I am not fit to lap the water that gathers in the treads left by your wheels…"

"Don't let Bettie the gnomess hear you talk like that," Zan cautioned, "Or the man of Knowledge will have to mix up some of his repair cement stuff, because she'll snap off your…"

"Yes, thank you, Zan," grumbled Tiem.

"…And jump up and down on it until it shatters," finished the younger gargoyle ominously. "Remember how angry she was when you got it stuck in that fountain? The one that's the naked lady, with wings, and all puckered up and spouting…"

"Right, right, yes, I do recall that occasion, Zan," interrupted Tiem, shuddering at the tongue-lashing the gnomess in the yard had given him when she'd found out. Next time, he thought, next time he spotted a frisky-looking fountain, he'd have to remember to clean the algae off his phallus. "Come on," he spread his wings and stretched, "Let's check in with the Guardian, and do a round of the wards. I want to check on that gap in the shed roof, too. I won't have those damned pigeons nesting in there, not when _she's_ back in the yard. Filthy things. They have no respect." Rolling his eyes, Zan followed his brother's lead, as they glided down to make their bows to the Guardian, and start their patrol.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby cackled, positively cackled, as he flipped through the pages of the books Sam had procured from the pie witch's altar, while the Winchesters filled him in on the job they'd just completed.

"Bobby," said Sam cautiously, "Bobby, you're cackling. A wise man once wrote that cackling was the first step along the road to losing your grip – you end up going crazy a little bit at a time until you think it's perfectly normal to stop washing and wear a kettle on your head, and at the end of that road, it's poisoned spinning wheels and gingerbread cottages and getting shoved into your own oven."

Bobby cackled again. "I can never help but wonder how the hell these folks get hold of these books," he declared. "This one, on Summonings, we should be grateful she didn't decide to try these out. It's bad enough she had the power to pull off Transformations," he tapped another of the books, "If she'd started callin' up things to set onto men who'd pissed her off, we'd probably all be heading for the escape pods about now."

"Are you sure that one of 'em isn't a recipe book?" asked Dean plaintively. "She was the most amazing cook. It's just a tragedy that she couldn't use her superpowers for good."

"Recipe books is very old mojo, son," Bobby intoned, "It's Secret Women's Business, and unless invited to do so, you don't go stickin' your nose into that. It's one of them Feminine Mysteries, what man ought not wot of."

"You can hit the internet tomorrow, bro," Sam consoled him, "I'm sure there are hundreds of sites you can surf for pie recipes."

Dean looked thoughtful. "That's true," he agreed, "For the Way Of Pie is a Journey, in which it is the experience, and not the destination, that is truly important…"

Sam groaned and announced his intention of going to bed before Dean could start with the indoctrination again. "Watch out, Bobby, let him get started and he'll brainwash you until you're ready to agree to anything, up to and including voting Democrat, just to get him to shut up."

"Ah, young Padawan, you were such a promising student," sighed Dean melodramatically, following Sam up the stairs, "Yet now I see you are turning to the Dark Side, away from Pie. Darth Salad."

"Jerk."

"Sith. I mean, bitch."

They bickered, they changed, they went to bed. Jimi curled up on his blanket, and settled, ears freshly washed. Within twenty minutes, three distinct notes of gentle snoring, and a fragrant waft of lavender-scented Hellhound farting, filled the room.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The sun peeped over the horizon, presaging a clear day.

Dean allowed himself the luxury of waking up slowly. He'd had some seriously strange dreams – there had been pigeons, and Sam turning somersaults, and a strangely unfrightening sense of flying, and somewhere in the middle of it all Bettie Page had popped up, ohhhh yeah, that bit had been good… a sensation of hardness below waist level suggested just _how_ good that bit had been. Heh heh, maybe he'd jump in the shower and take care of business before facing the day…

He yawned hugely, stretched luxuriantly, and threw back the covers.

He fell off the bed.

It felt like about ten feet down.

He yelped, landing with an awkward thud. His eyes flew open, and a number of things went through his brain.

The first one was _Hellooooo, handsome, glad to see I didn't sprain you on the way down – whoa, down boy, let's get to the shower, then I'll release the kraken…_

The second one was,_ Why was the bed ten feet tall, and why is the bedroom floor covered in damp grass?_

The third one was,_ io89u54yjkldfp[I drfIYUphui ^&#$*UGJgdg srslyWTF?_

Naturally, whatever was going on, he knew exactly whose fault it must be…

"SAAAAAAAM!" he shouted.

"Wha'?" came the sleepy reply.

It was followed quickly by an awkward thud, and another yelp. "Dean? Was that you?"

Sam rubbed his eyes, and rolled over. "Oh, jeez, bro," he groaned, "Nobody wants to look at that first thing in the morning, at least put it back in your pants until you get to the bathroom…"

"SAAAAAAAM!" yelled Dean again, sounding more bewildered and desperate.

Sam sat up, yawned and stretched his arms and wings. "Man, did I have a weird dream last night," he began, "There were these pigeons…" his voice stuttered to a halt, as his brain did the same.

_I just stretched my arms and… wings?_

He blinked hard a couple of times. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

"Um, Dean, I think… something is… er… something…" he stumbled.

Dean scowled at his little brother. He was not going to take This Sort Of Thing from Sam at this hour of the morning.

"Sam," he demanded, letting his displeasure seep into his voice as he glared at his little brother's bemused face, "Stop being a gargoyle! You stop being a gargoyle _right this minute!"_

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><p>I know, I know, it's impossible to irime-nage someone by the ura waza (or morote-dori someone's tanken), but it is entirely possible for a naked woman to yonkyo a bloke onto the rug, as my husband will attest.<p>

Reviews poke the Update Inspiration Fairy with a pointy stick, and are also the Chunks Of Crunchy Cucumber in the Chicken Salad Of Life!


	3. Chapter 3

It's Nerdvana, isn't it? Pratchett and Star Wars, and even a bit of nihongo thrown in (Bartlebead, my Japanese is as rusty as my aikido). Let's face it, that pie was bound to be suspect... Oh yes, we do have peanut butter Down Here, elf, but not Reese's, or Hersheys, or any of that TOTAL MUCK that Merkins put up with and are contented enough to call 'chocolate'. Honestly, the greatest country of the free world, and you haven't invaded Belgium and commandeered their chocolatiering establishments? FFS, America, nobody else will care if you invade Belgium. Not even the Belgians. Your taste buds will thank you.

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><p><strong>SPECIAL BONUS FEATURE: DELETED SCENE FROM CHAPTER 2<strong>

*Small cute gargoyle cat (possibly as depicted at: http COLONSLASHSLASH wwwDOT amazonDOTcomSLASH Winged-Gargoyle-Computer-Topper-Sitter/dp/B000CPAE90) appears, and twines sinuously around Dean's feet, tail up and twitching, and purring loudly.*

**Dean: **Hee hee hee!

**Sam: **Dean, what are you giggling about? We've been turned into gargoyles. This is not funny! OMG what a totally cute cat! Can we keep her?

**PaulatheCat:** Meow *twines around Dean's feet again*

**Sam:** Oh, she's just adorable, a little gargoyle cat! I wonder where she came from?

**Dean: **Hee hee hee!

**Paulathecat:** Meow purrrrrrr *twine twine twine*

**Sam: **Why are you laughing at the gorgeous little gargoyle cat?

**Dean: **Because every time she walks around my feet, the end of her tail tickles my balls, hee hee hee! Yeah, let's keep her.

**Paulathecat **Meow heh heh meow *twine twine twinetwinetwine*

**Sam:** This is too close to bestiality.

**Dean:** Prude. Hee hee hee heeeeeee, ooooooOOOOOOOOooooo eeeeerrrrrrrr

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

"Tiem? Tiem!"

"Wzrfl?" responded Tiem, not completely awake. His half-asleep brain had trouble processing what he heard; that pestering tone was clearly his little brother, but the voice wasn't Zan's...

"Tiem!" persisted Zan in the wrong voice, "Wake up! Something has happened!"

"You're telling me," yawned Tiem, "For a start, I'd say somebody had cut your gonads off, if you had any." He stretched, a strange sensation of disorientation hitting him. He opened his eyes.

"Er, Zan," he asked, "What am I doing... horizontal?"

"You've been sleeping," answered Zan, "But it's very important that you wake up now."

"All right, all right," grumbled Tiem, blinking heavily. "What's wrong with your... yergflng?"

He looked up at his brother. And up. And up. And up.

"What are you doing all the way up... there?" he demanded.

"I'm not sure," replied Zan, in his strange, squeaky voice.

"Zan," rumbled Tiem, noticing that his own voice was decidedly squeaky too, "Why do you look like Taller? If this is your idea of a joke, stop it at once. It's not funny. It's just... weird." He stood up. And up. And up. "Hey, what am I doing all the way up here?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," said Zan, sounding exasperated. "Something has happened."

Tiem considered that. For a moment he wondered if he was dreaming. Didn't they say that too much polycarbonate close to bedtime could give you strange dreams?

"Are you sure I'm not dreaming?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yes, I'm sure," humphed Zan, still stubbornly resembling Taller. However, Tiem knew it was truly his brother, because of the authentic gravelpuss expression the face pulled. "You look like Shorter, and I look like Taller."

Tiem processed that information for a moment, and looked down at his hands. They were pink, and stubby, without talons. The ground was also a lot further away.

"Well, this is... unexpected," he finally said.

"I think we should find the man of Knowledge," suggested Zan, experimentally moving his legs. "He will be able to tell us what's happened." He frowned. "These legs are a bit long. They're quite awkward. I don't know how I'm supposed to roost with these."

"Never mind, Zanny, we'll figure something out." Tiem stretched again, feeling a sense of something missing. "My wings!" he suddenly burst out, "My wings are gone!" He spun around on the spot a few times, trying to see the middle of his own back. "What happened to my wings? Where are they?"

"Well, seeing as we're looking like Taller and Shorter, we don't have wings," Zan pointed out reasonably. "They're human. Humans don't have wings. For them, it's normal."

"Well, it's not normal for us!" snapped Tiem, feeling suddenly bereft. "How are we supposed to move around without wings?"

"We walk, like they do, I suppose," shrugged Zan. "That's what these legs are for. See, you have them too."

Tiem glanced down reluctantly. His legs were, as Zan suggested, longer than he was used to.

"Well, they're probably reasonably efficient for walking, being this long," he sighed resignedly, studying the strangely elongated limbs.

With a sudden stab of alarm, he noticed something else that didn't seem to be right...

"Oh, no..." he breathed, peering in dismay.

"Tiem?" asked Zan anxiously, "What's wrong?"

_What's wrong? What's wrong?_ A shrill little voice in Tiem's head twittered, _We've woken up in human bodies, and you're asking what's __**wrong**__? That's bad enough, but now, this..._

Reluctantly, Tiem pushed away the garment the body was wearing.

"Oh, no," he practically wailed, "This is just adding insult to injury!" He glared at his brother's bewildered face. "Look at it!" he demanded, "Just look at it!"

Zan dutifully peered at the offending appendage. "What's wrong with it?" he asked.

"What's _wrong_ with it?" echoed Tiem incredulously. "Look at it! There's clearly something wrong with it! You can't tell me it's just supposed to, to, to _dangle_ there like that, all droopy! It's broken, or something!"

Zan didn't look convinced. "It looks healthy enough," he ventured, "It doesn't look broken."

"Ha! And you'd be an expert, would you?" hissed Tiem venomously. He went back to his gloomy perusal. "I mean, how could you do anything with... that?" He prodded the unsatisfactory organ with a too-stubby pink finger. "Look, it just... wobbles!"

"Maybe that's what humans are supposed to be like," suggested Zan. He looked thoughtful, then pulled the garment off his own body. "Look," he said, "Mine's the same." He waggled experimentally. "It doesn't feel broken, or diseased, or anything. I think maybe this is normal."

"No wonder so many humans look so grumpy all the time," mused Tiem, frowning unhappily at this most unhappy of discoveries. He looked around them. "Where are we, anyway?"

"I think we might be... inside," answered Zan, in a slightly awed tone. "Inside the house."

"What? Really?" Tiem let that sink in. He'd never been inside a building before. "Wow."

"We should find the man of Knowledge," stated Zan firmly, "And ask him what has happened."

"Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea," agreed Tiem, moving to take a step towards the door. His feet tangled in the garment he'd pushed down, and he stumbled. "Aaaargh!" he grumped, "Stupid clothes!" He stepped out of the garment puddled at his feet, and pulled the shirt over his head in a fit of pique. "I never did understand what humans see in them."

"They are annoying, aren't they?" sympathised Zan, pulling his own shirt off. "Come on, let's start looking." He turned to the corner to see the dog on the floor, watching them with confused interest. "Ah, maybe he can help..."

"It's worth a try," shrugged Tiem, addressing the dog in the language of guardian species. He bowed to the dog.

_I give greetings, dog-pup of the Guardian, and ask where we might find the man of Knowledge?_

_He will be down the stairs. You are not my Pack._ The dog made a confused observation.

_We are the Watchers who have taken duty with the man of Knowledge. We report to the Guardian. Something strange has happened._

The dog stood_. Find the Den-Alpha. He is Elder here. He has longmemory of much wisdom. I must seek my Pack._ He stretched, scenting the air. _My Dam and litter-sister may have seen something in the night. I will relay anything they know._

_Our thanks to you, Hunter's dog. _The large animal nodded to them, and left the room at a brisk trot.

"Well, we'd best find the man immediately," decided Tiem, following the dog. They located the stairs quickly. He spread his wings, ready to give the one strong flap that would take him to the bottom of the flight...

Only he didn't have any wings, and the legs were much too long, and before he knew it, he'd face-planted halfway down.

"Tiem!" Zan was at his side, helping him up. Tiem saw stars, and he sat down heavily on the stairs. "Tiem! Are you all right?"

"Um... no," he said, in a bemused voice, realising that he wasn't all right. "I don't think I am. Zan, it... it... it _hurts_..."

The look of utter horror on Zan's face scared Tiem even more than the unpleasant feelings his body was experiencing. "Tiem," he whispered, "You're leaking..."

"Leaking?" Tiem put his hand to his face, where his nose was... _sore_... and it came away red. Somehow, that, combined with the _sore_, made it all worse.

"It hurts," he repeated, his breath hitching and his face screwing up. Then his eyes began to leak as well. "Zaaaaaan, it huuuuuurts!" The leaking began in earnest, and he started making noises of distress.

"Tiem, it's all right," quavered Zan, putting his arms around his brother, and starting to sniffle in sympathy, because the noises his brother was making were quite distressing to listen to as well.

In the end, the man of Knowledge found them, when he came to find out what the noise was.

Having had the Winchesters stay with him on many occasions, Bobby was pretty well inured to the noise and occasional strange happenings associated with their visits – he just didn't bat an eyelid anymore.

Small explosion detonated in the kitchen when Sam opened a pre-packed salad? Ho-hum. Yodelling screech as Dean thundered down the stairs in search of ice when he discovered that his bottle of sorbolene lotion had been laced with IcyHot? Been there, done that. Naked Winchester brother escaping from the bath to run down the stairs, trailing soapsuds, and bolt for the yard? Bitch, please, seen it. Twice. Sam (aged three), and Dean (aged twenty-something, and bespelled into thinking he was a dog). Nothing they did fazed him anymore. Hell, he'd been an active Hunter before becoming semi-retired. Tweedledum and Tweedledumber barely registered on his WTFometer.

However, on this one occasion, he did cock an eyebrow when he heard the crash, then found the Winchesters sitting buck naked on the stairs, Dean bleeding from the nose and bawling his eyes out and clutching his little brother, while Sam hugged him and sobbed along.

"Well, that's certainly something I don't see every day," he mused to himself.

Just when he wondered idly whether his morning could get any weirder, the front door opened and then slammed loudly. There was the sound of two heavy sets of footsteps, and two deep voices that sounded like they gargled gravel every morning before breakfast became clear.

"Dean, I think we need to calm down, and just figure out what's happened here..."

"Calm down? Calm down? Do you realise how close I went to snapping my dick off falling off that stupid gate? Don't you tell me to calm down! Bobby? Bobby! What the fuck is going on? This is seriously fucked up, Bobby! NOT HAPPY, Bobby!"

Two gargoyles stomped into his hallway, with Jimi trailing behind them, cocking his head in a bemused fashion. The smaller gargoyle was swearing a blue streak, his wings quivering with outrage, while the larger one stood behind him, talons wringing anxiously, trying to break into the monologue of complaint.

He realised that he was the only being in the house wearing any clothes.

Bobby sighed. Clearly, his morning of a leisurely perusal of the extremely interesting books Sam had brought him had been derailed.

"I'll just go put coffee on," he announced as calmly and authoritatively as he could, in the face of the sobbing and swearing, "Then we'll get to sorting this out." He had a suspicion that it was to do with the job the Winchesters had recently finished. A hang-fire spell? A curse on a time delay? First thing he'd have to do would be to have a closer look at that witch's grimoire.

And when this latest fiasco was sorted out, the next thing he was going to do was set a trap for the little fairy that clearly came tra-la-la-ing into his room every night while he was asleep to dab idjit attractant behind his ears. He was gonna pull the critter's wings off.

* * *

><p>Reviews are the Delicious Belgian Chocolate Sea Shells on the Teacup Saucer Of Life.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Dude, what the hell are you... am I... what the hell is that?" demanded the smaller gargoyle, still bristling with annoyance as Bobby led the two Winchester bodies back down the stairs, 'Dean' now subsided to the occasional sniffle.

"It's a shirt," said his body, looking down at the paisley printed garment he had chosen after the man of Knowledge had explained about clothing.

"I think what he means is, why are you wearing that one. It's one of mine," clarified the larger gargoyle from his perch on a chair in the living room.

Tiem looked down at the shirt again. "I like this one," he said, "It has leaves on it. And it's loose."

The smaller gargoyle continued to pace, waving his arms about. "Well, it looks totally sissy," he snapped, "As if you aren't making me look enough like a chick already."

"I hurt my nose," defended the shorter human body, "It's still sore."

"Suck it up princess," growled the affronted gargoyle, "I've... you've... that body has had worse."

The taller human stepped up to the angry gargoyle, and glared down at him. "You leave my brother alone," he demanded, "He hurt himself!"

"Well, he should be more damned CAREFUL," raged Short & Stony, "Seeing as it's not even his own BODY he'd better damn well take care of the merchandise while he's in there..."

"Ha! Like anyone's going to care what happens to this piece of meat," hissed 'Dean', "This useless, long-legged, short-armed, wingless, squishy-nosed limp-phallused thing..."

"That's enough!" barked Bobby. The four other individuals subsided. "Now, I am going to fix coffee, and we are going to talk about this like rational huma... rational beings."

Five mugs of coffee later, they all sat in the living room. The two gargoyles perched on the floor. The two 'Winchesters' perched on the sofa, slurping in amazement at their drinks.

"This is... wonderful!" declared 'Sam'.

'Dean' swished his noisily around in his mouth, smiling, all tears forgotten. "Does this have brake lights in it?" he asked.

"It's called sugar. Now," began Bobby, "I have my suspicions about what's going on here. I just need to confirm who is, er, who, right now. Dean?"

"Yeah/Yes," said the shorter gargoyle and human both at once. They stared at each other.

"No, you've just stolen my body," insisted the gargoyle, "I'm Dean."

"Well, I'm actually Tiem," the shorter human told him.

"But 'Dean' is what the man of Knowledge calls him," explained the taller human. "And he calls me 'Sam', although my name is actually Zan. It's amazing how close he got to our names! He says good morning and good night to us every day," he went on, as both 'Winchesters' looked fondly at Bobby, "He says, 'Mornin' there, Dean and Sam, don't you go scarin' any civilians, ya idjits', and 'One of these days, Sam, somebody's gonna climb up there with a scrubbin' brush and give you a haircut, Mr Moptop', and 'You know, Dean, I'm kinda thinkin' you oughta put some shorts on, that thing frightened the vicar'..."

The larger gargoyle was staring at Bobby. "You named them Dean and Sam?" he asked, his face forming a bitchface/gravelpuss expression that both older brothers recognised. "You named them after us?"

Bobby removed his hat and scratched his head, looking slightly sheepish. "Well," he said slowly, "They are, according to gargoyle reckoning, brothers, and, er, Tiem there is older," he raised his eyebrows, and Dean's body nodded at the correct pronunciation, "And Zan there is a bit bigger, and, he's a bookworm, and, well, you have to admit, there are certain other... resemblances..."

The two gargoyles glared at him more stonily than being carved out of granite would explain.

"The, er, hair, I mean," Bobby stuttered, "Zan's lichen, looks a bit like... and Tiem, well, Tiem has, er, Tiem has, that is, Tiem has..."

"A propensity to frighten the vicar?" suggested the larger gargoyle snidely.

"Fuck my life," muttered the other one, dropping his head into his claws.

"They're not very respectful towards the man of Knowledge," observed the larger Winchester body, his expression also rearranging its settings to bitchface/gravelpuss.

"All right, we need to sort out who's who right here," asserted Bobby. "You are Dean," he pointed to the smaller gargoyle, "You are Sam," he indicated the larger one, "And this is Tiem who is gargling his coffee again, I don't know why, but he's not crying so it's all good, and you are Zan. We all clear?" The swapped identities all nodded. "Right. You two idjits – no, not you two idjits, you two idjits – can call me 'Bobby', because that's how humans work, and I'm human, and right now you're masquerading as human, and frankly I don't think my brain could really cope with being addressed so respectfully by something that looks like Dean Winchester."

"Man of Knowledge," sniggered Dean, and Sam slapped him upside the head with a taloned hand.

"Now, as I was saying, before I had to sort out you chuckleheads, I have my suspicions about what has happened here." He picked up the witch's grimoire that he had been looking forward to reading in a more leisurely mood. "I suspect this may be a hangover from the Hunt Sam and Dean just finished up, but I'll have to do some reading to figure it out. You think you're up to some research, Sam?"

Sam stretched his wings and fidgeted a little. "I think so," he replied, looking down at his taloned hands, "Although I'm a bit worried about handling your books."

"I can hold books," said Zan, a trifle defensively, his wistful expression looking even more convincing than usual with a human face to express it, "A man of Knowledge taught me, when I was a fledgling. I can help too," he insisted.

"Okay, then," Bobby headed for his study, "I got some books on Transformations that might help." Sam and Zan followed him, both moving a bit awkwardly in their unaccustomed bodies.

"What are we supposed to do?" demanded Dean, wings quivering in annoyance again.

"Make more coffee," supplied Tiem promptly, peering into his empty mug.

"Coffee would be good," Bobby's voice drifted back to them, "Show him how, Dean."

"Great, just great," muttered Dean, "I wake up, fall off a gate, just about break my neck..."

"And my phallus," accused Tiem.

"...Shut up, you, my brother won't stop being a gargoyle, I can't stop being a gargoyle, and now I have to teach myself how to make coffee." He sighed. "Come on them, handsome," he told Tiem, "Maybe I can educate you about some really important things." He waddled towards the kitchen, Tiem trailing behind him. "What do you know about mechanics?"

"I know how a printing press works," Tiem told him, "The brothers at St Birgit had one."

"Wasn't quite what I had in mind," grunted Dean, gloomily inspecting his talons, "My Baby needs a bit of maintenance, and I don't know how the hell I'll manage with these... hands."

"Well, I don't know how I'll manage if a demon shows up, and all I have is this wibbly wobbly excuse for a phallus," snarked Tiem.

"Oh, God, and Sam says I'm obsessed," Dean griped. He pulled himself up onto the bench with his long arms, and pulled coffee out of the cupboard. "Okay," he began, "The Gentle Art Of Brewing A Decent Cup Of Coffee, And None Of That Flavoured Crap That Sam Likes Because It's Not Actually Coffee At All. Step one, first catch your coffee grounds. Step two, fill the pot with water..."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

It was messing with Bobby's head, ever so slightly, to see Sam, perching on a chair at the table in the living room, carefully leafing through a book and delicately holding a pen in his talons, while Zan perched on another chair right beside him, human knees coming alarmingly close to his shoulders. They both sat so still, it was difficult to tell which one had grown up as a gargoyle.

"What I don't understand is, if this is Grandma Gracie's doing, how did it happen?" asked Sam plaintively, as Tiem came into the room, carefully carrying a tray with more coffee on it, Dean following him.

"I've made coffee!" he beamed. "For Bobby, NATO Standard, and for Zan, black with four sugars," he passed out the mugs, "And for me, and for Dean, black, and for Sam, Weak As Elderly Chupacabra Piss With That Vanilla Shit That Will One Day Make You Grow Boobs Because You're A Great Big Frigging Girl," he finished, like a student who's just completed an assignment and is anticipating an elephant stamp.

Sam glared at Dean with Gravelpuss #1™ (Dean, I Don't_ Believe_ You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!) as he sipped his drink. "Actually," he said, "This is pretty good, Tiem. Better than Dean usually makes it for me," he added pointedly.

"I like coffee," sighed Zan happily.

"Me too," agreed Tiem, after an enthusiastic gargle. "It's like having virgin doves piss on your tonsils."

"Tiem, doves don't pee."

"All right then, it's like having virgin butterflies piss on your tonsils."

"Butterflies don't pee either, haven't you ever watched them?"

"Wretch."

"Fiend."

"So, Team Handsome has the catering covered, does Team Nerd have any ideas on what the fuck actually happened?" asked Dean, perching on the sofa.

"Bobby suspects it's Grandma Gracie's doing," Sam told him, "But I don't understand how – we ganked her, destroyed her altar, destroyed her shop, destroyed all the pies. There was nothing left."

"Maybe there was something outside the place you burned down?" suggested Zan.

"No, she was working out of her shop," mused Sam, "There was nothing at her house to suggest... Dean?" Sam looked hard at his brother, who was managing to look extremely sheepish, and was actually squirming. "We destroyed everything, didn't we?" His eyes narrowed. "Dean, that pie you shared with me yesterday, where did it come from?"

Dean turned the most wistful look ever carved onto his brother. "I just wanted to save one, Sam," he explained in a mournful tone, "And it was just right there, already boxed up, and it was so golden, and so fat, and so moist, and it just looked up at me and begged me to save it..."

"I don't believe it!" humphed Sam, "I do not believe it! You knew she was cursing pastries to work her mojo. You rescued a cursed pie!"

"I didn't think it would still be cursed after we burned down the shop!" Dean defended hotly. "It was just one pie, Sammy, I just wanted to save one. AND it was delicious. You agreed it was delicious!"

"OF COURSE it was delicious!" groused Sam, his wings twitching irritably. "It was delicious to make sure it got eaten! YOU FED ME CURSED PIE, YOU JERK!"

"You liked it, bitch," scowled Dean, "You even licked the plate, don't think I don't know..."

"If I could just interrupt these Hallmark moments of brotherly bonding," interrupted Bobby, "I don't think she was pulling off Transformations," he suggested, checking his own notes. "That takes a hell of a lot of talent, and occult mojo. I don't think she had it in her, looking at this book – she wasn't packing enough juice to pull off something like that. Looks more like she pulled some sort of switch, with pre-existing statues or ornaments."

Zan looked thoughtful. "What would happen if you tried to... put a person into a, well, just a statue?"

"I don't know for sure," said Bobby grimly, "But I suspect what you'd get is one dead body, and one completely unaltered statue." He frowned. "Maybe she just set 'em to swap with the nearest piece of statuary. Go to sleep human, wake up... dead. Statues are just inanimate rock. I'm guessing, she never anticipated that one of her pies would target a couple of guys who'd go to bed within shoutin' distance of a couple of honest-to-Murgatroyd gargoyles. You two got real lucky, coming back here."

"Yeah, I feel sooooo lucky, right about now," groaned Dean, peering glumly into his coffee.

"Well, if we can figure out what she did, we can tackle figuring out how to undo it," reasoned Bobby, "So Team Nerd here will get on with the research. Right guys?"

"Yes, Bobby," chorused Sam and Zan, turning back to their books.

"What about Team Handsome?" asked Dean.

"There's a couple of gates outside you can sit on," Sam told him, "You'll have to explain how to use a ladder to Tiem."

"And keep the coffee coming," suggested Zan without looking up. "More sugar next time, please."

"Bitch/Wretch," Team Handsome scowled. "Come on, Tiem," humphed Dean, "You can help me with my Baby."

"I don't know anything about human babies, other than they're noisy and they smell bad," said Tiem, following the gargoyle out of the house.

"She's not that sort of baby," grinned Dean.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"We just gotta let her warm up before we drain the oil," explained Dean, as the Impala rumbled gently at idle, "Ordinarily I'd take her out, but that's not really an option at the moment. You might have to give me a hand, I don't know how I'll manage with these wings... Tiem?"

Tiem was standing, barely daring to breathe, staring at the car. He looked like he might be about to burst into tears again.

"Er, Tiem, are you okay?" asked Dean.

"Her name is... Baby," whispered Tiem, not taking his eyes off the Impala.

Dean grinned. "Yeah, I call her that. My Baby, my girl."

"She is... magnificent," Tiem said, awestruck, "She is... beautiful."

"You like Classics, huh?" smiled Dean.

"I have admired her from afar from the day I first saw her," sighed Tiem. He looked at Dean with wondrous hope in his eyes. "You want me to help you with her?"

"Yeah, another pair of hands – well, a human pair of hands – might be useful. At least, you can hand me stuff."

Tiem put out a hand hesitantly.

Dean laughed. "It's okay to touch her, you know," he said, amused.

Tiem laid a hand reverently on the hood. "I was always too worried to touch her," he explained, "Worried that I would damage her."

"Nah, she's tough," Dean reassured him, "You wouldn't believe what she's been through."

"She's warm," noted Tiem, smiling, trailing a hand along the paintwork to the front pillar, "So warm, and smooth."

"It's the black paint, absorbs heat," Dean told him, "And she'll warm up quick, just sitting at idle... er, Tiem?"

Tiem stretched both arms along the tops of the doors, and laid his cheek on the roof. "Hello, Baby," he whispered, "I am so happy to meet you, Ferrous Goddess, fellow creature drawn from the Earth..." he closed his eyes, feeling the low, rumbling vibration through the car, through the strange, soft body he occupied. It felt... good. It felt... really good.

"Er, Tiem," Dean tried again, "Are you... are you, er, communing with my car? Seriously, are you... talking to my car?"

Tiem had a beautiful smile on his face, eyes closed, and was whispering to the Impala in some language shared by things brought forth from the Earth's crust and mantle, and he was moving, oblivious to anything else. It felt really, _really_ good.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Team Nerd were dragged from their discussion of a possible counter-spell when they heard Dean yelling in the yard.

"What the fuck? Dude, that is just fucking WEIRD... Hey, stop, oh my God, are you... You are! You are! Stop it! Stop... No, no, no, nonononoNONONO STOP HUMPING MY CAR!"

There was a surprised cry, then running footsteps, and the sound of the door opening. Tiem burst into the living room, a look of happy relief on his face.

"It's all right, Zan, I shouldn't have worried," he reassured his brother, pushing his pants down to his knees, "Look! It works after all!"

* * *

><p>Ah, G.W.N. is always so well received. I'll see what else I can do. Should they have to go back to the place where Grandma Gracie's shop was? How would the two pairs of idjits cope with a road trip? Would Bobby be reduced to banging heads together? Whaddyareckon?<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Okay, maybe we could take a break," suggested Bobby, rubbing his eyes. They weren't making any progress. Zan was jiggling both knees and humming a little tune to himself, and Sam's concentration seemed to be shot.

"I'm sorry Bobby," apologised Sam, "But I've been forced to look at two big brother boners up close and personal already today, and it's kinda put me off my game."

"I can get Tiem to make some more coffee," chirped Zan brightly, practically bouncing in place, "Because I'd like some more, too." Bobby watched the fidgeting human body, wondering if Sam Winchester's knees would recover from the experience of perching like that. Zan seemed to have taken Dean's approach to pie, and applied it to coffee – it tasted good, too much was barely enough, and a well-timed serving could cure all manner of ills and disasters.

"No," answered Bobby quickly, "I think you should lay off the java. You're gettin' kind of... twitchy."

"You seem to like it a lot stronger than I usually drink it," commented Sam. "It can make humans kind of, yeah, twitchy."

Zan considered that. "I don't feel twitchy," he ventured, cautiously.

"You sure?" pressed Sam.

"Pretty sure." Zan considered his answer. "Although I think my back teeth might be wiggling."

"Okay, so no more coffee, then," declared Bobby, shutting his book. "Let's think about chow, then we'll get back to it."

They headed for the kitchen, where Sam pulled himself up onto the bench to look out of the window. Dean was perched on a crate, leaning over the Impala's engine. Tiem stood beside him at alert attention, his face a picture of worshipful reverence, as he handed tools to Dean with the precision of a scrub nurse passing surgical implements to a surgeon. Occasionally, he surreptitiously rubbed his hard-on against the car's front panel.

"You know, I always thought that if the Impala was a woman, Dean would marry her," mused Sam, "Just never thought I'd see him, or even just his body, trying to, er, consummate the relationship."

"Tiem is a bit of a strumpet, I'm afraid," confided Zan, with a crunching noise, "Show him an attractive feminine inorganic feature, and he can't help himself."

"Sounds a lot like Dean, except for the inorganic bit... what are you eating?" queried Sam.

"Ah, hell no!" Bobby snatched the bag of ground coffee away from Zan. "You're not supposed to eat that, ya idjit!"

"It tastes good," protested Zan, licking the spoon he'd been using.

"Oh, God, you are going to be bouncing off the walls," predicted Sam gloomily.

"Does this body bounce?" asked Zan, boinging up and down on the balls of his feet.

"Depends on how high you drop it from," grumbled Bobby, handing Zan a sandwich, "Try this instead."

Zan took a bite out of the sandwich. "It's all right," he decided. "Do you have any pigeons?"

"Er, as a rule, not usually," replied Bobby.

"There are some nesting in the roof of one of the sheds," Zan told him, heading for the door. "I'll see if I can grab one. I might need to use your ladder thing..."

"What? Hey, hey!" mumbled Sam through a mouthful of his own sandwich, waddling on his short bowed legs after Zan. "Hey! Come back here! Zan! Don't you dare try to feed my body pigeons!"

"God knows what we're supposed to do when Tiem decides he wants to snack on his usual broken brake lights junk food," muttered Bobby, shaking his head and wondering just how much idjit you needed to get in one place before the mass went critical and formed the equivalent of a black hole made of pure, compressed idjit, an Idjit Hole, a quantum idjitlarity, and tore a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum. Hopefully not too soon after lunch. Being sucked into a quantum idjitlarity was bound to play merry hell with a man's digestion.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"So, this is the distributor," Dean was explaining, pointing with a wrench – long gargoyle arms were really quite convenient for working on an installed engine and his clawed hands were surprisingly dexterous, able to undo stubborn nuts with ease. "It distributes the spark to the cylinders. Now, the gas comes in from the tank, via the fuel pump, where it goes to the...?" he prompted.

"Carburettors," answered Tiem.

"Right, and in the carburettors, the gas is..."

"Mixed with air, to make the fuel mix," intoned Tiem, with the concentrated solemnity of a novitiate reciting from his book of offices.

"Very good. So, the fuel mix comes into the top of the cylinder, and it gets there how?"

"It's drawn in through the inlet valve!" answered Tiem.

"That's right, now, once it's in the cylinder chamber, this thing, the distributor, sends a spark to this thing, the spark plug." Dean popped a lead off a plug, and unscrewed it with his talons. "See that gap there?" He handed it to Tiem, who gazed at it as though it was a precious religious relic. "A spark jumps across that space, and ignites the fuel mix. That pushes the piston down, then it comes up again, and the burned fuel, it's called exhaust then, goes out through a different valve, the exhaust valve..."

"How do the different valves know when to open and when to shut?" asked Tiem anxiously. "What if an inlet valve decided one day to open with the exhaust valves?"

"Okay, that never happens, unless something goes really really wrong," explained Dean, replacing the plug. "That's where the camshafts come in. This might be easier to explain if we pull the rocker covers off one of Bobby's junkers... dude," he noticed the faint creaking of the suspension again, "Didn't I say no humping the car?"

Tiem blushed to the hairline. "Sorry," he muttered, "She's just so... so... so... yeah," he sighed.

"Maybe we should put her hood down before you go getting any further ideas," decided Dean, closing the hood and jumping off his crate. "We'll have a look at one of the junked motors, and you'll be able to see..." his gaze was drawn to an argument coming from the house.

"... and they don't eat pigeons," Sam was saying insistently, "Well, okay, maybe cooked pigeons occasionally, but usually not, or maybe if you're Ozzy Osbourne, but as a rule, not whole, dead, raw, crunchy, freshly killed feral pigeon with all the feathers and bones still there..."

"You don't eat all the feathers and bones, Sam," Zan actually rolled his eyes, striding down the steps, "You spit the prickly feathers out, and pick your teeth with the wishbone afterwards." He looked around the yard. "I think Bobby keeps the ladder over there..."

"No, no, no, that's not the point!" continued Sam, spreading his wings and flapping a couple of times to carry him to the ground at the bottom of the steps, "What I'm getting at is..."

"Sam!" yelped Dean, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to walk Zan through Feeding A Human Body 101," snarked Sam, "And Lesson One is: we do not grab pigeons and eat them fresh from the nest!"

"I thought Lesson One was, we do not eat the coffee straight from the packet," commented Zan, looking confused.

"Yeah, okay, that was Lesson One, Lesson Two is, no still-warm pigeons."

"No, no," clarified Dean, "What are you doing, flying?"

"What?" It was Sam's turn to look perplexed.

"You flew, bro," Dean told him, "You flapped your wings and flew from the top of the steps!"

"I did?" asked Sam dubiously, looking back at his wings, flapping them awkwardly. "I didn't realise I'd done it."

"My body must remember how to fly," suggested Zan, "Maybe you just have to get the hang of controlling it consciously. Like I've had to get used to your legs."

Sam looked thoughtful. "It would be more... convenient," he said, finally, "Gargoyle legs really are not made for walking." He flapped his wings again. "So, um, how do they work?"

"Well, it depends on where you are," began Zan, "If you are roosting, you need to get the leading edge down to power into a glide, so you don't stall, but if you're taking off from the ground, you need a couple of really strong flaps all the way through to the trailing edge..."

Sam flapped his wings doubtfully.

"No, no, no," fussed Zan, waving his own arms around, "Like this..."

"No, no, he's doing it wrong," declared Tiem, striding over to stand behind Sam, and adjust his wings. "More like this... no, no, leading edge! Leading edge! This bit! That's better..."

"Sam," began Dean warily, "Sam, what do you think you're doing?"

Sam's face was a picture of concentration, as Zan waved his arms and Tiem adjusted his pinions for him. He flapped harder.

"That's it! That's it!" encouraged Tiem, Zan still flapping his arms around, "Now, two really strong flaps, and jump! Jump!"

Sam flapped as hard as he could, and jumped, bouncing a dozen feet into the air, then landing and bouncing up again.

"Sam! Saaaaaam!" called Dean anxiously, "Sam, you stop that right now! Get back down here!"

"I can do this! I can do this!" yelled Sam, face screwed up in effort.

"Leading edge! Leading edge!" shouted Tiem, flapping his hands. Zan ran around in circles, attempting to demonstrate.

Sam bounced once more, then managed a lurching flight of about fifty feet, landing in an ungraceful heap.

"Sam!" Dean was at his side immediately, "Sam! Don't you dare do that again!"

Sam was grinning hugely. "Are you _kidding_?" he squeaked, "I can_ fly_!" He immediately started flapping his wings again, bouncing awkwardly aloft once more. "Wheeeeeeee!"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

It was kind of quiet all of a sudden, thought Bobby gratefully, when Sam followed a caffeine-buzzed Zan out of the house, attempting to dissuade him from snacking on pigeons. He made himself some sandwiches, and went back to the witch's grimoire.

He returned to the kitchen, deciding a small shot of something alcoholic – for medicinal purposes, of course – would be just what he needed. He got himself a glass, and poured a double. As he sipped his whisky, he was drawn to the window by the cacophony of yelling going on outside.

Tiem and Zan in their human bodies ran around in circles, shouting, flapping their arms up and down. Dean also waddled around in circles, shouting and waving his arms around.

About twenty feet off the ground, Sam was flying awkwardly but determinedly in slow loops.

"That's it! That's it! Angle your pinions!" encouraged Zan.

"Like this! Now, try a swoop!" shouted Tiem, "Just a shallow one! Don't stall! Keep your leading edge down!"

"SAAAAAM!" shrieked Dean, shaking a fist skyward, "You get your stony ass and your pinions and leading edge back down here RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!"

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" trilled Sam, performing the required swoop then recovering awkwardly to an unsteady hover.

"You're doing great!"

"You need to concentrate on maintaining trim! Don't yaw!"

"SAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

"YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Don't look down! Don't look down! Pitch! Stabilise your pitch!"

"Now, why don't you go up a bit higher, and head for the shed, see if you can grab me a pigeon!"

"SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! DOWN HERE! _NOW_!"

"YEEHAAAAAAAAAARRRRR RRRRSHIIIIIIT!"

There was a crash suggestive of something large and heavy dropping into one of the scrap metal bins. Apparently, landings were a bit more difficult.

An unrepentant stone face bobbed up out of the bin, smiling widely. "That was awesome!" Sam declared.

The other three all began shouting at once as Sam climbed out of the scrap bin, and began flapping again.

Bobby sighed, nursing his drink. He was pretty sure they'd just crossed the event horizon. Total idjitlarity couldn't be far off now.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

By the end of the day, Bobby was exhausted. He'd had to referee between four idjits squabbling in various permutations and combinations. He had locked the booze and coffee away, Zan was sporting some impressive bruises as a result of going after a pigeon and forgetting that it's necessary to hang onto a ladder on the way back down, Sam was still wittering on about how amazing flying was, and Tiem had scraped both his elbows raw when he suddenly sprinted into the long grass, and jumped on an unfortunate squirrel. Dean was slumped on the sofa, booze in clawed hand (his talons had proved dexterous enough to manipulate his lock picks, but at least he'd had the good manners to lock up behind him and keep the coffee safe from Zan). And they were no closer to figuring out exactly what the witch had done to curse her pies.

"Pizza is good," decided Tiem, "But I don't know why I couldn't have that squirrel."

"Gross, dude," grumped Dean, "You are not shoving raw rodents down my throat!"

"It would taste even better if we could sprinkle some coffee on it," suggested Zan hopefully.

"Don't even go there," muttered Sam.

"I need a less stressful job," sighed Bobby, "Somethin' less strenuous, less dangerous. Bomb disposal. Shark dentistry, maybe. Kodiak bear obstetrics."

When the members of the household had eventually headed for bed – Zan and Tiem took the sofa and mattress in the living room, not being very happy about the stairs – Bobby headed for his own room, turning over the problem in his head. He had to admit, he was at a loss.

Reluctantly, but recognising that desperate situations require desperate actions, he knelt stiffly by his bed, put his hands together, and closed his eyes.

"Now I lay me down for shut-eye,  
>Sorry that I ask this, but I<br>Pray to Angel Castiel  
>For help to stop a witch's spell,<p>

Upon a pie she placed a curse,  
>To make a man and stone reverse,<br>Dean saved it from her burning shop,  
>So now we have an ID swap,<p>

Dean and Sam are gargoyles now,  
>And Tiem and Zan are them, somehow.<br>I have a house that's full of idjits:  
>One has got the coffee fidgets,<p>

One is drinking dry my bar,  
>One has tried to hump a car,<br>One is learning how to fly,  
>All because Dean worships pie,<p>

We may not have much time, I fear  
>Before we up and disappear<br>And all go down the toilet bowl  
>Into a quantum idjit hole.<p>

And if tonight my soul leaves me,  
>I hope that Heaven's idjit-free.<p>

Amen."

* * *

><p>So, Sheldon!Cas to the rescue? Or just more GWN?<p>

Reviews are the Quantum Idjitlarities in the Universe Of Life!


	6. Chapter 6

Now, where were we? *flip flip flip*

_And the Denizens did call out unto the writer, "Render unto us more GWN! For it is written, GWN is amusing, and pleaseth us greatly!"_

_And the writer replied "But verily and forsooth, has GWN not been provided unto you? Both Dean and Sam, depicted uncloth-èd? Have I not alluded to erotically-charged contact with the Beloved Impala, and indeed contemplation and actual waggling of certain masculine anatomical features?"_

_And the Denizens did cry as one, "No! Too much GWN shall never be enough! Let there be GWN! Let there be titillation! Let there be occupation of personal space! Also, make manifest Castiel, the Angel of the LORD, for he is adorable in his guise of Sheldon!Cas, and definitely not God/Robo!Cas."_

_"Very well," agree-eth the writer, "So let it be written, so let it be done."_

No, not that bit *flip flip flip*

_And Castiel the Angel of the LORD did appear unto St Robert, who did wail unto him,_

_"O woe unto me, for yea and verily do idjits vexeth me mightily."_

_And Castiel the Warrior of Heaven spake unto him,_

_"I bring succour unto you in the form of revelation, but I really do not think you are going to like it."_

_Thus did the Angel of the LORD grant revelation to St Robert, who did cry out unto Creation: "Balls."_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

Tiem slept a bit restlessly – it proved to be impossible to roost in a human body. He curled up under the blanket on the sofa, the way the man of Knowl... Bobby had demonstrated, trying to make his human self comfortable, but sleeping horizontally was just... weird.

Early in the morning, he heard Zan twitch on the mattress on the floor, and make an unhappy little noise.

"Zan?" he asked quietly, putting out a strange, stubby hand to check on his brother, "Zan, you should be asleep. Are you all right?"

"No," mumbled Zan, sounding thoroughly miserable. "I can't sleep. I feel terrible."

"What's the matter?" Tiem went into big brother mode. Zan rolled over, and Tiem saw that his eyes were on the verge of doing the distressed leaking thing.

"Everything hurts," he moaned miserably, "Everything aches, all down the back of me, these legs, and my head hurts, owwwww, Tiiiiiem, it all huuuuurts..."

"It must be something to do with your human body," suggested Tiem, patting Zan gently on the shoulder. "I will go and ask Bobby what he thinks we should do."

Tiem braved the stairs, and found his way to Bobby's room. A light sleeper like most Hunters, Bobby woke up when the door opened.

"Dean, er, Tiem, is that you?" he asked, looking at the clock. "God's tits, ya idjit, what are you doin' here at this hour?"

"Zan isn't feeling well," Tiem told him, hands wringing anxiously, "He says his head hurts, and everything down the back of him aches, his legs."

Bobby sat up, yawning, recognising a Worried Big Brother when he saw one. "He probably has a headache from all that coffee he drank – and ate – yesterday," he surmised, groaning as he swung himself out of bed. "The aches and pains, I'm betting are from making a human body, one as lanky as Sam's, try to roost yesterday for so long, while we were reading. Crash-landing whilst attempting pigeon procurement probably didn't help." He made his way to the bathroom, Tiem trailing behind him, where he fished out Tylenol and some liniment, and issued instructions. "And no matter how much he asks or begs, don't let him have any more coffee."

"Thank you, Bobby," smiled Tiem, bobbing a small bow out of habit, and heading carefully back down the stairs.

"And put some damned clothes on!" Bobby called after him.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Maybe if you made me some coffee, I'd feel better?" suggested Zan hopefully.

"No," stated Tiem firmly, "Bobby said no coffee. He thinks that's what made your head feel so bad. Did those pill things help?"

"I think so," ventured Zan.

"Is this stuff helping with the aches?" asked Tiem, concentrating on what he was doing.

"I think it is," Zan told him, letting out a small yelp. "Sorry," he apologised, "It's really sore just there."

"These human bodies are too easy to damage," tutted Tiem, "I had no idea."

"I guess we'll just have to be careful," sighed Zan, with a yawn, wriggling a little to get comfortable on his mattress.

"Maybe you need a nap, if you didn't sleep very well," suggested Tiem, reaching for the bottle again.

"Hmmmmmm," went Zan, his eyes closing. Tiem grinned to himself, glad that his little brother was feeling better.

All his attention was on Zan, so he didn't notice later on when Dean walked past the open living room door, did a double-take, and somehow managed to give the impression that his granite face was turning green.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Dean," began Sam carefully, "I think you might be over-reacting." _Or, possibly, not reacting at all_, he thought to himself, waving his hand up and down in front of his big brother's thousand-yard stare and getting no reaction.

Dean remained slumped on the kitchen table. "What has been seen," he moaned, "Cannot be unseen."

"Look, I tried to teach Zan how to sit on a chair like a human, but old habits die hard - he just kept roosting, and now, well, my body's gluteal muscles are protesting at sitting in a squat for hours yesterday," Sam tried again. "Tiem just saw his little brother in pain, and he wanted to help. It's a big brother thing, surely you can understand that?"

"What I understand, Sam," Dean grated out, "Is that I have now seen myself tenderly massaging my little brother's naked, aching ass."

"Dean, I don't think gargoyles think about, er, anatomy, and, um, that sort of thing the same way humans do…"

"On the living room floor," continued Dean. "He was smiling. _I_ was smiling. Don't you talk to me about over-reaction, Sam, I saw myself _smiling _while I massaged your ass!" He let out a strangled noise, and let his head fall with a heavy thump onto the table. "I'd poke out my eyes, but that wouldn't get rid of the mental picture." He looked up wistfully. "Is there some way to poke your own brain out?"

"On a number of occasions, you have pointed out to me that you have wiped, cleaned, powdered, ointmented, washed and otherwise tended to my ass before," pointed out Sam, depositing a mug of coffee in front of his big brother.

"When you were in diapers, Sam!" squawked Dean, "When you were a baby!" He shuddered.

"Well, that's how Tiem sees the situation, he's taking care of his baby brother…"

"He could've put some clothes on my body before he started massaging your ass!" Dean wailed.

"You know they aren't bothered about clothes, Dean, we'll just have to remind them…"

"This is Becky's doing," Dean growled, his eyes narrowing, "She's messing with Chuck's computer, and taking advantage of the situation. She's got a disease, Sam, she's got a fangirl disease!" His eyes looked frantic. "She's not just content to write her weird and twisted stories, she has to mess with our real lives!" He glared at the ceiling.

"Dean, I really don't think…"

"You know she won't leave it at your ass, don't you?" Dean's voice became remarkably shrill for a gargoyle. "It'll get worse, he'll ask you to turn over, and then it'll be, it'll be, it'll be caressing clavicles, and God knows what else, and OH MY GOD DO WE BOTH HAVE TO BE NAKED IN THERE YOU DEPRAVED WOMAN?" he addressed the ceiling.

"Dean!" Sam snapped, "Calm down! It's not you and me in there! Just… just try not to think about it."

"Right, just pretend I never saw it," sneered Dean, "You go look in that door, and tell me you could ever forget what you see!"

"Ah, the other pair of idjits," observed Bobby, wandering into the kitchen. "What's got you so riled up, boy?"

"He saw Tiem, er, attending to Zan's aches and pains," replied Sam, hovering briefly to reach a box of cereal in the cupboard.

Boby grunted. "He's almost as protective of his baby brother as you, Dean."

"Sam, I told you not to do that!" Dean barked as his brother landed on the floor.

"You should try it," Sam told him enthusiastically, "It's amazing. It's fun! You'll never get an opportunity like this again!"

"I sure as hell hope not," Dean grumbled. "So, what's the plan now to get us back into our own bodies, so we can put some CLOTHES on them?"

Bobby frowned. "Well, I sent a p-mail last night, because I think we need help on this one," he admitted, "But we still got some books we can look up."

Dean sighed. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Well," started Sam, turning around, "I don't think this gargoyle body is used to chairs, then there was the crash-landing in the scrap bin, and I'm feeling kind of sore and achy just here…" he waggled his tiny little gargoyle tail at Dean.

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Tiem grinned to himself and patted Zan on the shoulder. "Feeling better now?"

_Snaaaaark_, snored Zan softly. Tiem smiled fondly, and pulled the blanket over him.

As he stood up, Jimi the Hunters' dog trotted briskly into the room, and barked twice for his attention.

"Shhhhh!" Tiem shushed the dog, "Zan's just gone back to sleep!"

Jimi butted against Tiem's leg, and woofed again, more softly. _Dodge_.

Tiem looked around. "What is there to dodge from?" he asked, as he heard the _flap-flap_ noise that he recognised as being wings.

He turned around to find himself practically nose-to-nose with a shorter human.

"Hello," he said cautiously, wanting to appear well-mannered under the man of Knowledge's roof.

"Hello, Dean," answered the short man with messy hair. It reminded him of Zan's lichen. The man looked down. "Why are you in a state of undress?"

Tiem looked down at himself. "I haven't put my clothes on yet," he answered. "They're over there," he added, pointing helpfully to the neatly folded pile beside the sofa. "I didn't want to get liniment on them."

The Amazing Flapping Appearing Man cocked his head. "A sensible precaution," he pronounced, "Being an oil-based preparation, it would in all likelihood have stained the cotton-based fabric, requiring multiple applications of degreasing pre-wash spray prior to laundering in hot water with detergent containing phosphates, thereby contributing to greenhouse gas emission by requiring a hot wash and potentially contaminating the environment – phosphate contamination of waterways can lead to algal blooms that kill off aquatic fauna."

"It was for my brother," said Tiem, assuming that the Amazing Flapping Appearing Man must be a man of Knowledge to fly into the room undetected, and speak an incantation like that so easily.

The A.F.A.M. stared intently at the sleeping figure. "He has sustained extensive microtearing of the myofibrils constituting his glutei maximi, quadriceps femorae and biceps femorae, as well as microtrauma to the iliotibial bands," he diagnosed seriously.

"Really?" Tiem looked down with alarm at his sleeping brother. "That sounds terrible! What does it mean?"

"It means he has a sore ass," grumbled Dean, making his way into the living room. "I know it had to be you when the dog came in. Gah! Cas! How many times do you have to be told, dude? Personal space!" He waved a claw at the angel, trying to shoo him away from Tiem. "Will you please put some pants on?" he continued, glaring at Tiem, "As awesomely handsome as I am, I think I've been traumatised enough for one morning."

Castiel turned to regard the gargoyle curiously. "You are a gargoyle." He looked back to Dean's body. "This is your corporeal form, and yet," he looked back to the gargoyle, "The gargoyle is speaking, and behaving, in a manner much more suggestive of being Dean Winchester."

"Ah, nothing gets past you, does it, Cas?" Dean continued snidely. "Not one sparrow falls, not one trench coat wrinkles, not one Sasquatch has a sore ass, but Castiel notices. You're so thorough. Leave no obvious statement unmade, leave no personal space uninvaded, leave no ass unexamined. It's the attention to detail that makes all the difference."

"Technically, it's not actually my ass, right now," Sam opined, hovering into view behind him. Dean tried to swat him out of the air, as Bobby followed him, flapping a hand.

"If you don't stop behavin' like the world's biggest blowfly, Sam, I swear I'll take the swatter to you," he grumped. "Thank you for coming so quickly, Castiel," he continued. "As you can see, we have a bit of a problem here with pairs of idjit brothers swapping bodies…"

"Tiem?" asked Zan sleepily, yawning and getting to his feet, "What's going on?"

"Morning, Zan!" chirped Dean brightly, "Guess what time it is? That's right, it's Put Some Pants On Time!"

"Who's that?" asked Zan, standing behind his brother.

"Cas, this is Tiem and Zan, the gargoyles who watch my yard," Bobby explained to the angel.

"I am Castiel. I am an Angel of the Lord, a Warrior of Heaven," the angel introduced himself. Tiem and Zan bowed politely. Dean performed a very convincing faceclaw.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't bow to him, you have no idea how badly that went last time…" he groaned.

Bobby elbowed him sharply, then yipped, and rubbed his elbow. "I'm afraid that Dean has even more rocks in his head at the moment, along with his usual quota of tact that would make a charging rabid rhino look diplomatic," he said tartly.

"Your message mentioned a witch's curse, and some involvement of pie," prompted Castiel, "However the quantum physics phenomenon you alluded to is not one with which I am familiar, although I took a moment to peruse Professor Hawkings' latest theories but found no mention of 'idjit matter'. Incidentally, Danael in Reception praised your prayer composition, and asks that you run a critical eye over any that Dean may wish to send in future."

"It started with the last job we took, and Dean's amazing ability to think with his stomach rather than his brain," Sam said pointedly, as they sat in the living room and explained the situation to the angel, who listened intently. He examined the witch's book as they talked.

"This happened while you were all asleep?'

"Yeah, I woke up and fell off the gate, and Dean told me to stop being a gargoyle."

"There was a desire to consume freshly-killed specimens of _Colombia livia_?"

"Apparently, I'm not allowed to – they've even locked away the coffee…"

"Was the attempt to copulate with the vehicle… successful?"

"Well, I'm not sure how this phallus is actually supposed to work, but it eventually…"

"GAH! SO DO _NOT _WANT TO HEAR THIS!"

"Very well." Castiel closed the book. "I believe Bobby is correct," he said, "This is not an actual Transformation, but an exchange of... selves, between a human body, and one made of stone of some description. You were extremely lucky that the curse activated when the nearest stone effigies were in fact sentient beings."

"What happened to the other guys who, er, didn't swap with sentient stones?" asked Sam warily.

"They are dead," Castiel explained regretfully, "Dead, but their souls can be thought of as being in a form of suspended existence, within the stone items. Not aware, but… stuck."

"Lost in transit," suggested Dean gloomily.

"So, how do we swap our idjits back again?" asked Bobby.

"It will be necessary to break the curse," Castiel answered.

"We already did that," Dean pointed out, "We ganked her, destroyed her altar, burned her shop and all the pies…"

"Except for one, obviously," muttered Sam acidly.

"It is difficult to explain," Castiel went on. "I believe that her curses were… linked, in a way. Each individual swap was a part of a whole spell."

"What?" Sam's granite face managed to look appalled, "You mean, witches have discovered… cloud computing?"

Castiel looked confused. "Prevailing meteorological conditions should not have any effect on the procedure for casting or breaking this curse," he commented, "Notwithstanding the decline in the practise of meteoromancy over the last two hundred years."

"Ignore him, Cas," sighed Dean, "He's just getting his geek on, and his flying practice has affected his brain, it's the rarified air up there starving it of oxygen."

"So what you're saying," deciphered Bobby, "Is that we need to go let these trapped souls out of their garden gnomes."

"Yes," confirmed Castiel. "I can assist you with devising a dispelling ritual. It will be quite simple, but it must be timed carefully. They must be released as a group, to break the overall curse."

"Balls," said Bobby, pretty much summing up the situation succinctly.

"What does that mean, Bobby?" asked Zan, as Sam drooped visibly and Dean stomped off muttering something about needing a very large drink.

"What it means, boys," replied Bobby as cheerfully as he could, "Is that we will all have to go and do a Hunt together."

"A Hunt?" repeated Zan, his eyes wide in awe. "Us?"

"Yep," confirmed Bobby, "You'll have to come with us."

"But we can't fly," pointed out Tiem.

"Well, this is where we introduce you to another human activity," Bobby went on, "It's called a 'road trip'."

Dean let out a whimpering noise.

A look of understanding dawned on Tiem's face. "Will we…" he swallowed, "Will we… will we ride in the… Impala?"

"I think that might be the best option," Bobby said carefully.

"Oh. Oh. Oooooohhhhh," Tiem started to breathe heavily.

Dean looked at the glass he'd fetched, then necked the bottle.

"No problem," he announced, brittle smile in place, "All we have to do is make sure we stop every hour to get salad for Sammy, coffee for Zan, and another bag of ice to dump down Tiem's pants."

Bobby did his best to remain philosophical. Dean, Sam and Castiel had all been to Hell and back. He had the distinct impression that he was about to take his turn.

* * *

><p><em>And the writer didst write, yea, I shall attempt to update as soon as I hath time, and petition unto the Denizens, Visitors and Casual Dropper-Innerers to send reviews, for reviews are much beloved and do givest me a ludicrous happy.<em>


	7. Chapter 7

**SPECIAL BONUS FEATURE: DELETED SCENE FROM CHAPTER 6**

*Dean tears open envelope*

**Dean:** Oh yeah, this is what I need.

**Sam:** What have you got there?

**Dean:** It's a massage voucher. Says here, 'This voucher entitles Dean Winchester to one free naked ass massage courtesy of aeicha, once he's back in his own body'. Awesome!

**Sam:** Does that mean your ass will be naked, or your masseuse will be naked?

**Dean:** Heh heh, don't know, could be fun finding out, heh heh…

*Sam tears open envelope*

**Sam:** Oh, hey, look, I've got two vouchers, one from Ciya and one from Leahelisabeth…

**Dean:** What? *blinks* Does that mean you can have two ass massages, or both of them massage your ass at the same time?

**Sam:** *blush*

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

"Bobbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" yelled Dean from the yard, "Sam's been Doing It again!"

"It serves you right, you and your stupid pranking," he yelled right back. Having become bored, Dean had started amusing himself as only Dean could: by finding ways to prank, irritate, annoy or vandalise Sam. So far, this had included downloading pictures of obscene female garden gnomes on Sam's laptop, painting his brother's talons hot pink while he was asleep, and leaving a stunned pigeon of dubious continence in Sam's bed.

Finally, Sam had retaliated by grabbing Dean's leather jacket, taking off, and leaving it draped over a branch of one of the taller trees around the yard. Every time Dean annoyed him, he simply airlifted one more of Dean's possessions. The tree was starting to look like a very strange Christmas tree.

"Bobbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" howled Dean again.

"Quit your whinin'! You want your stuff back, go up there and get it yourself, you got the wings."

"I'm not going to use them!" declared Dean, "It's not safe! It's unnatural!"

"Then go get the ladder, train a damned squirrel, ride a broomstick, call the fire brigade, but stop pesterin' me!" Bobby told him with a scowl. Dean stomped back inside, muttering, heading for the bottle Bobby knew he had stashed in the Winchesters' room.

Bobby sighed, and returned to preparing the brew they'd need to undo the curse. It was taking longer than it should have, because he kept having to stop what he was doing, and play referee, detective, mother hen, Bad Cop or kindergarten teacher.

Sam had fired up the second laptop and demonstrated the basics of the computer to Zan, who had taken to it like a geek to Dungeons & Dragons. Within an hour, Zan had subscribed to several barista chat groups, coffee appreciation pages, and found a helpful 'How To' website that demonstrated the picking of simple locks. As a result, the household was going through coffee at an astonishing rate. Tiem took advantage of Dean's tantrums over Sam Doing It – when he wasn't coaching Sam's flying practice, he sought opportunities for covert car humping. Sam practised his flying (landings were still a bit of a problem) and, once Dean had passed out, decided to continue retaliatory pranking at ground level: Dean practically yelled the house down when he woke up later, hungover, with a large pink bow super-glued to his phallus.

"Well, aint you just a pretty pretty princess," noted Bobby casually when the elder Winchester stomped angrily into the kitchen, beautifully adorned rampant appendage preceding him.

"Bobbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Dean yowled in outrage.

"There's a can of acetone in the workshop," Bobby told him, peering into his mortar.

"_Bobbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!_" Dean was as insistent as a one-year-old who'd dropped a favourite toy out of the cot.

Bobby glanced out the window, and sighed. At this rate, it would take a week to finish the preparations for the curse-breaking counterspell. He threw the window open, and yelled loudly.

"Sam! SAM! You get that can outta the tree and back down here right now, nobody wants to look at your brother's junk dressed up like Barbie!" He paused. "And I know you're there Tiem, I can't see you but I can see that car rockin' like it's got a couple of seventeen-year-olds in the back seat!" A guilty, blushing dark blonde head appeared sheepishly from behind the Impala.

"Shall I make coffee Bobby?" asked Zan brightly, positively bouncing into the kitchen. "Have you ever considered buying a coffee machine? There's things called pods and they take a lot of the guesswork out of …"

"What I really want is a fortnight in the Bahamas and an unhealthy amount of very good quality Scotch," Bobby replied grumpily. He relented when he saw Zan's disappointed puppy-dog eyes. "Coffee would be great, Zan," he said, watching Sam Winchester's face light up happily, "You really are very good at making it. You have a talent with it."

"Yay! Coffee!" cheered Zan, doing a little happy dance. "Maybe you could mix some alcohol with your coffee?" he suggested. "I've been reading about things you can put in coffee, some people put spices, or some liqueurs, and there's this drink called Irish Coffee…"

"You know," mused Bobby, "Right about now, that actually sounds pretty good."

Zan let out a little squeak of enthusiasm, and headed back to his laptop, putting Bobby in mind of a scientist about to embark on a brand new exciting research project.

"All right, then," he enthused, returning with his laptop, "I've been making some notes, you can do all sorts of things with coffee…"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Sam's granite nose twitched as he waddled into the kitchen. A strong scent of coffee and other things permeated the air. "What have you been doing, Bobby?" he asked, "It smells like a Turkish brothel in here."

"How would you know what any sort of brothel smells like?" asked Dean, prodding at a small bowl on the table. "This one smells kinda good," he said, "This is going to be one of the better-smelling counter-spell brews you've made Bobby, usually they're pretty disgusting."

"I liked you better with the bow," Sam told him.

"Well, it's gone now, no thanks to you," Dean grumped.

"You were in that shed a long time," mused Sam, "It took you an awfully long time to clean all the glue off. Looks like you gave it a good polish, though. Nice and clean. You really must've given it a good, er, seeing to."

"Shut up, bitch," mumbled Dean, somehow managing to give the impression of blushing.

"The coffee is Zan's," Bobby said, returning to the kitchen with one of his books, and muttering over the pot on the stove while giving it a final stir. "Well, this is finished," he announced, "Finally. Woulda been quicker if I hadn't had to deal with so much idjitry in one place, but we're ready to go. I'll make arrangements for the dogs, and we can head out tomorrow."

"Good," humphed Dean, "The sooner I'm back in my body, the sooner I can start paying Samantha here back for vandalising the one I'm currently occupying."

"So," Sam went on, "Did the acetone work like lotion, or was it the friction from the rag that made it…"

"Shut up!"

"Because I'm pretty sure Bobby will have some cutting oil, so maybe…"

"Shut! Up! Bitch!"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The Impala was quite a large car. The interior space was certainly larger than many more modern cars, but after a few hours behind the wheel, Bobby started to feel like he was trapped in a tiny Japanese hatchback with an excursion group from the local school's Special Needs class.

Pysically, they actually fit reasonably comfortably: Zan, being the occupant of the longest body, sat in shotgun, quietly engrossed in the laptop, hardly saying a thing. (Dean was adamant about that, insisting that Zan have space to stretch his legs and not do any perching that might precipitate another episode of ass massaging.) Tiem sat in the middle of the back seat (also forbidden from perching, because the only thing Dean could think of worse than seeing himself massage Sam's ass was the idea of seeing Sam massage Dean's own ass). He rested his chin on the front seat, arms along the back of the bench, his rapt attention on Bobby, watching every move like a hawk, asking the occasional question. Riding in the Impala seemed to be a combination of religious experience and wild erotic fantasy for him.

The Winchester gargoyles perched on either side of Tiem. Gargoyles could comfortably perch very compactly when they had to. No, physical space wasn't really a problem – the problem was the Winchesters' bickering.

It had a set of physical laws all of its own. It was fluid, sometimes almost tangibly solid, yet more gaseous than liquid: it had no defined volume, and rapidly expanded to fill all of the space available to it. It was clearly flammable, but had a fluctuating flashpoint. It could boil at nothing, freeze at anything, opening a window to let it out could actually increase the concentration of bicker per cubic foot, then it could suddenly disappear, annihilating in a catastrophic reaction with some stray particle of anti-bicker, only to precipitate out again half an hour later.

Bobby decided it was probably due to the proximity of a quantum idjitlarity. That, or global warming. Either way, he had no idea how John had held off from banging their heads together when they were much, much younger.

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I didn't!"

"You totally did!"

"I did NOT!"

"You DID! I heard you! I thought we suddenly had a banshee to deal with as well, but it was just you, screaming like a girl…"

"I let out a shout of surprise, all right? A manly shout of surprise."

"Right. A manly shout. Of girlish, screaming surprise."

"Sam…"

"Girlish, screaming, two octaves above middle C surprise."

"At least I didn't wet myself when it sprang out at me."

"Dean, I was eight years old, and I was nearly gutted by a werewolf when that happened!"

"Hey!" interrupted Bobby, "If you two back there don't shut the hell up, so help me…"

"What?" snarked Dean, "You'll turn this car around and head straight back home?"

"I'll put you in the trunk."

"Aha, take that, evil pigs!" cackled Zan, "That will teach you to steal my eggs, you fiends…"

"What does that one mean?" asked Tiem, pointing to a gauge.

"That's the fuel gauge," Bobby told him, "When it goes towards that side, it means we're getting low on gas…"

"Which goes, via the fuel pump, to the carburettor, regulated by the accelerator, to be mixed with air to form the fuel-air mix, then be drawn into the cylinder through the inlet valve where the distributor supplies a spark to the spark plug and…"

"Yep, yep, that's the stuff," agreed Bobby, wondering if Tiem had some sort of mental rosary of nuts, bolts, shims and washers that he followed every time he did the Recession Of The Internal Combustion Engine. "It means we have to find a gas station to buy some more. Which means everybody stays in the car, and you two idjits, no, not you two idjits, you two idjits, hold still. Don't go scarin' the civilians."

He pulled off at the next gas station, filled the tank, and headed into the store with requests for coffee, candy, fruit, bottled water and pigeons following him. "Behave!" he hissed as he left.

The Winchesters duly subsided, sitting suitably and silently stone-like, for all of the thirty seconds between Bobby leaving, and a pick-up carrying two attractive women pulled in at the next pump.

"Hey, check this out!" said Dean, "Passenger side! Dude, she's wearing Daisy Dukes!"

"Dean, we're gargoyles!" Sam hissed sideways. "Stone ornaments! Hold still!"

"Will you look at those legs," Dean continued, "Then look at the tops of those legs… then keep looking up – I could balance a beer on that rack."

"Dean! Shut up!" Sam grated out.

"She's looking this way!" barked Dean. "Smile and wave, Tiem, smile and wave!"

Tiem, still enjoying a transcendental experience with the Impala, lifted his head, an angelic smile on his face, and waved.

"Dean! Don't!" yelped Sam. "Oh, God, she's coming over!"

"Talk to her, guys!" instructed Dean, "Talk to her! Get her number, oh, God, that ass…"

The woman with the long legs and the short shorts bent down to the window. "Hi," she smiled.

"Feel the wrath of my exploding black bird!" chuckled Zan triumphantly. Tiem just smiled happily, and gave her another little wave.

"This is a gorgeous car," she said, "Is it a Classic?"

"She's wonderful," sighed Tiem, "She's the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes on."

"Or claws on. Don't mind him," Zan flapped a hand in Tiem's direction, not lifting his eyes from the laptop, "He's in love."

"I'm in love," repeated Tiem, stroking the seat lovingly. "I'm SO in love. Not that I'm allowed to do anything about it," he added resentfully.

"Dean was very specific about that," Zan told him primly, "No humping the car, he said. I know you keep doing it anyway, we've all seen you. It's disgusting, rubbing yourself all over the panels until your phallus gets hard and I saw you eyeing off the tailpipe…"

"Be quiet, you," humphed Tiem equably, rubbing his cheek against the front seat, "Or I won't massage your butt any more."

"Die, villainous swine!" barked Zan. He looked up and seemed to notice the attractive young woman for the first time. "Oh, hello," he said. "That's an interesting piece of peridotite on your necklace," he added.

"Oh, er," she began uncertainly, "Thanks. You like it?"

"It's pretty to look at," Zan told her, "Unusually high proportion of olivine. But it doesn't taste very nice. It's less than 45 percent silica."

"Polycarbonate's better, if you want a snack," contributed Tiem. "The red ones taste best."

"That stuff causes premature erosion," tutted Zan, turning back to the laptop.

"Okaaaaay. I'll just… be going. Bye." She beat a hasty retreat back to the pick-up, and began an animated conversation with the driver.

Sam fought the urge to gravelpuss or faceclaw. "Happy now, Dean?" he asked surreptitiously out the side of his mouth. "Thank you for patronising Zan and Tiem's Happy Hook-Up Service, where 'Putting the 'ick' in fornication' is our motto."

Dean just watched the extremely attractive scantily clad backside get back into the cab of the pick-up, and let out a small keening noise. "I want my body baaaaaack," he whined miserably.

* * *

><p>Bartlebead relays that the Jimiverse has been mentioned on LiveJournal's all_spn community: we has a famous, Denizens (and Visitors and Casual Dropper-Innerers, too - waves to Chaonea, ohai!)! Everybody wave to the naise LiveJournal people! I'll have to go and do something with my LJ account, I suppose, I really only started it so I could look at Bartlebead and Leahelisabeth's gargoyle fan art..<p>

Reviews are the Attractively Piped Dollop Of Cream on top of the Irish Coffee Of Life!


	8. Chapter 8

God's tits, this one is turning out to be longer than I'd really anticipated. Balls. We will get to the end. Truly rooly. Couple more chapters to go.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

"I spy, with my little eye," began Dean, "Something beginning with: I."

"Impala," sighed Tiem, snuggling his face against the front seat bench.

"No."

"Idjit," muttered Bobby; 'I Spy' was better than 'Obscene Licence Plate Acronyms', but strangely even more annoying than 'Nine-Nine Pieces Of Quartz On The Wall'.

"No."

"Intellectual?" suggested Sam.

"No."

"Incendiary bird!" cackled Zan, holding up the laptop. "These pigs will never steal my eggs again!"

"No." Silence.

"We can't guess, Dean, what did you spy?" asked Sam.

"Indescribably Irritating Little Brothers," replied Dean smugly, high-fiving with Tiem. "That's another point to Team Handsome."

"What? That wasn't a thing, that was... just stupid!" declared Sam, with a shot of Gravelpuss #8™ (You Are Now Officially Talking Complete Shit, Dean).

"You're just jealous because Team Nerd is losing," Dean dismissed Sam's protest airily.

Bobby put a stop to that, suggesting 'Twenty Questions'. Sam went first.

"Animal?"

"Yes."

"Me."

"No, Dean, not you."

"Is it a mammal?"

"Yes."

"See? It is me."

"Dean, it's not you! Tiem, ask a question."

"Is it an impala?"

"No."

"Does it have four legs?"

"Yes."

"Does it have a tail?"

"Yes."

"It could be an impala."

"It's not an impala."

"Does it explode when you throw it at pigs?"

"What? Zan, either tune in, or tune out. No!"

"Can it be house-trained?"

"Hmmmmmmm, maybe, but generally, no."

"Heh heh, definitely aint Dean, then..."

"Is it a pig?"

"No, it's not a pig."

"Because if it is a pig, I'm going to launch one of my birds at it."

"It's not a pig, Zan."

"Sounds like it could be a bit pig-like."

"Hell, maybe it is Dean after all..."

"Shut up Bobby. Does it eat vegetables?"

"No."

"Does it eat their wheelchairs?"

"_Dean!"_

"Okay, okay, so it's a carnivore?"

"Yes."

"Does it have hooves?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I still think it might be an impala."

"Tiem, it's not a damned impala!"

"Does it have more than one baby at a time?"

"Yes."

"Does it lay eggs?"

"Dude, that's a totally stupid question, it's a four-legged carnivore?"

"If it layed eggs, would they explode when dropped on pigs?"

"Zan, I think it's time to stop playing that game, you're getting obsessed."

"Is their mating really noisy?"

"God, I don't know! I suppose it's probably kind of noisy."

"You sure it aint Dean?"

"Yes, I'm sure. You've got four questions to go."

"Was it in the Lion King?"

"Ummmmm... no."

"Is it a man-eater?"

"No."

"Do they taste good?"

"What? No! I mean, I don't know, but I doubt it."

"Could you fit one in the Impala?"

"Yes, although it might complain a bit about the company. That's your twenty questions. So, what is it?" asked Sam.

"I think it's some sort of pig," answered Zan.

"No, it's some sort of impala," decided Tiem, "A meat-eating impala."

"There's no such thing as a meat-eating impala!" Sam told him, exasperated.

"Maybe they're very shy, and nobody has ever seen one," suggested Tiem.

"It's Donald Trump," stated Dean confidently.

"Dean..."

"Okay, it's not Donald Trump. It's Hugh Hefner."

"If you can't take this seriously..."

"It's an ocelot," said Bobby.

"...Then there's no point... _what_?" Sam gawped incredulously at Bobby. "How the hell did you figure that out?"

"Because I'm a smartass, treacherous old bastard," came the reply.

"I'm not playing this any more," humphed Sam.

"I bet I know how to titillate an ocelot," smirked Dean suggestively.

"Oh, God," groaned Sam, "I don't want to know what you're..."

"Oscillate its tits a lot."

Further rounds of Twenty Questions proved to be disappointingly short:

- "Animal?" "Yes." "Is it an angry bird?" "Yes! You guessed! Point to Team Nerd!"

- "Animal?" "Yes." "Is it an impala?" "Yes. Ohhhhh, yes..."

- "Animal?" "Yes." "Is it Donald Trump?" "No. Ha!" "Is it Donald Trump's hair?" "Bitch."

Bobby vetoed some more proposed games, including Where Have You Done It (partly because he suspected there would be a high TMI Factor, and partly because it would be quicker to list the places that Dean Winchester had _not_ Done It), Who Would You Like To Do It With (on the grounds that Tiem was bound to say something that would discombobulate Dean), Gross Things I've Eaten (since the gargoyles would win hands, or maybe claws, down, Dean's appalling dietary habits notwithstanding) and .Strangest Place I've Ever Woken Up.

Singalongs proved to be equally fraught. 'The wheels on the car go round and round' quickly began innocently enough, but soon degenerated…

"The coffee in the pot goes gloop gloop gloop…"

"The wings on the gargoyle go flap flap flap…"

"The face on the Sam goes bitch bitch bitch…"

"The voice on the Dean goes whine whine whine…"

"The groin on the Tiem goes hump hump hump…"

"The ass on the Zan goes ouch ouch ouch…"

"The Bobby at the wheel goes shut the hell up, you pack of idjits," growled the driver.

Zan frowned. "That doesn't scan very well," he commented.

"I think the critics are saying we won't have a second season," suggested Dean, shaking out his last crumbs of M&Ms. "Can we stop for food?"

"You had food a couple of hours ago!"

"Well, I'm hungry. I'm out of M&Ms. Tiem ate most of them."

"More coffee would be good," added Zan thoughtfully.

"Maybe if we get a bag of apples or something…"

"And some pigeons?"

"Dean said we should try ice cream."

"I don't wanna stop until we need gas again," Bobby said firmly over the rising clamour, "So you lot just settle down."

A sullen silence descended.

"If you don't stop, we'll sing again," growled Dean.

"I aint stopping."

"Stop, or we'll sing!" Dean threatened.

"Dean…"

"Stop or we'll sing! Stop or we'll sing!" Four idjits chorused. "Stop or we'll sing! Stooooooop or we'll siiiiiiiing!"

"Balls," muttered Bobby, spotting a sign for a gas station, "Right now, I really don't regret that I never had kids."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

They arrived at the town where the Grandma Gracie had cast her spells much later than Bobby had anticipated – it was fully dark by the time they found a motel and were able to take two adjoining rooms.

"We'll bunker down for tonight, then start planning some gnome-napping tomorrow," he instructed, ushering Sam and Dean inside under cover of darkness. Right now, I'll go get some chow. I want ALL of you to STAY HERE. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Bobby," chorused The Four Idjits again. They heard the Impala pull away. Dean waited thirty seconds, then put a hand on the door.

"Hey, where are you going?" demanded Sam. "Bobby said stay here!"

"I've been cooped up all day," grumped Dean, "I want some air. Well, actually, what I want is some booze, no, what I really want is my own body back, but booze would do."

"Well, you can hardly walk into a store looking like that," Sam pointed out, "And we can't send Zan or Tiem, they're clueless. Besides which, Bobby has the money."

"Fuck my life," groaned Dean. "I'm going out anyway."

"Stay in the dark!" hissed Sam. Dean flipped him off, and slipped outside.

"Is there any coffee here?" asked Zan hopefully.

"Over there," Sam waved a hand in the direction of the tiny kitchenette.

Zan inspected the contents, and was spectacularly unimpressed. "Look at this!" he demanded, waving an offending sachet of instant coffee! "International Roast! I've read about this stuff, it's made from what's scraped off the floor, after it's been swept…" he tore open a packet, sniffed, and pulled a face that suggested he'd just been offered a hot mug of liquefied dog excrement. "Aaaaaargh! That is foul! That is BEYOND foul! It's a travesty! This stuff isn't coffee, it's… it's… it's anti-coffee!"

"We'll ask Bobby to get some better stuff tomorrow, I think I saw a coffee shop just down the block," Sam told him. Nonetheless, he ended up on the receiving end of one of his most spectacular bitchfaces. Which was weird. "Why don't we try the TV…"

He flicked the remote, and flipped through a few channels.

"Wait! Wait! What was that one?" interrupted Tiem. Sam flipped back.

A driving guitar riff played over the scene: a workshop. An assembly plant. A line of white cars, the large grilles and wide fins dating them to the 1970s. In the middle of the line, one blood red vehicle. The bonnet slammed on a man's hand.

Tiem sank onto the sofa, entranced by the music and the sequence.

Zan sat next to him, curious. "Is this a story about cars?"

Sam grinned. "Okay, then, let's watch a movie."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Dean stuck to the shadows. He knew how to avoid being seen, and a gargoyle's body was surprisingly capable of silent movement. He found a dank alley behind the motel, and stepped into the gloom. He stretched his wings – just because he didn't want to fly with them didn't mean they didn't like to shake out after being cooped up in the car.

He froze, and slunk silently against the wall as he heard a noise in the alley; low, agitated voices. Sliding along the wall he paused, thinking hard about being invisible, as a young skinny guy made his way rapidly in the other direction. It was nothing Dean hadn't seen before; where the was demand, there would be supply.

An interesting thought occurred to him. He listened carefully – only the one, then.

He broke cover, and sauntered lazily down the alley, until he found what he was looking for.

"Hi!" he called cheerily, with a wave of one claw, "What you selling?"

The guy was pretty alert for a dealer – he had his gun out and trained before his eyes caught up with his hand, and informed his brain of what had actually just greeted him. It definitely wasn't a regular customer. Having relayed the relevant information to the appropriate neurons, his eyes bugged.

"Heuhrrr?" he went, jaw dropping in disbelief, although the gun remained steady in his hand.

"I gotta admit," shrugged Dean, "I'm kind of impressed. That was a pretty quick draw, and you're holding it, even though you're trying to work out what the fuck I am."

"What the fuck are you?" demanded the dealer, gun arm still steady.

"What does it look like I am?" asked Dean, sounding exasperated. "I'm a gargoyle! You know, sit up on churches, lookin' ugly. scaring the vicar…" he smiled, and waggled his phallus for emphasis.

The dealer's eyes bugged even more. "Wha'… what the fuck you want?" he managed.

"Oh, I'm not buying," Dean informed him, "I thought I'd just stroll down here, and take your money."

"Wha'?"

"Take – your – money," repeated Dean. "Steal from you. Thieve from you. Rip you off, pilfer your pocket, loot your earnings for this evening." The dealer continued to stare in disbelief. "Look, my brother is a real nerd, he'd be able to explain it using a dozen more words, and possibly other languages, but basically, I'm just here to rob you."

The dealer's brain told the eyes and tongue to stop screwing around, and took control of the hand. "Pull the trigger," it said, "I'll discuss this with the eyes later."

The gun fired.

The shot hit Dean between the eyes.

"Owww!" he yelped, rubbing the spot where the round had ricocheted from the stone, "That stung! I really didn't think it would sting so much! Fuck! Ow!" He humphed at the dealer. "Look," he said, stepping in and grabbing the man's gun arm, "Just give me your money, and I won't break your arms off, okay?"

"Guaaaaaar!" went the dealer, as his brain suddenly decided that executive power wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"Come on, come on, I don't have all night," grumped Dean. He went through the dealer's pockets, then, as an afterthought, pushed him over, picked him up by the ankles, stood up as tall as he could, and shook him gently.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he cajoled, setting the gaping man down again and patting him on the head. "I get what I want, you get some target practice AND get to go home with all your limbs still attached. Win-win!" He smiled brightly. "You should probably leave now," he advised, "Run home, as fast as you can. You could always call the cops and say that you were robbed by a talking statue while you were peddling your shit, but I wouldn't advise it. The nuthatch aint the place you want to spend too much time, and pal, I'm speaking from experience here – it's full of crazy people, and they make you go to group therapy, which totally sucks, and…"

The dealer took to his heels before Dean could explain the unpleasantness of medication and the monotony of institutional food.

He curled his talons around his ill-gotten gains – well, they were ill-gotten before he ill-got them, so the ills probably cancelled each other out, he decided – he curled his talons around his honourably obtained and legitimately acquired gains, and headed out of the alley, humming cheerfully to himself.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Dean!" Sam looked at him with anxiety and relief as he returned to the room, "Are you all right? Did I hear a shot?"

"Just some idiot dealer in an alley," smirked Dean, glancing at the television. "What's on? Oh, hey, has it just started?"

"Yeah," said Tiem, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"Awesome! Move over." Dean snagged a phone, and called Bobby as he joined Tiem and Zan on the sofa. "Bobby? Yeah. Bring food. No, TV food. Lots of it. Corn chips. Potato chips. Sometimes food. And beer. What? I'm good for it. Yeah. Cash. As soon as you get back, actually. No, I'm not going to tell you, unless you promise not to yell 'Idjit!' at me… I might even tip you." He held the phone away from his ear as Bobby made it clear that he was not a grocery boy. "Okay. Thanks."

Sam glared at him suspiciously. "What was that about?"

"Provisions, Sammy, gotta have proper provisions!" Dean insisted. "Now, pull up a chair, or roost, but shut up, and watch. This movie is awesome."

"She's so red," breathed Tiem. "Look at those fins…"

"See? This from an aficionado of appreciating Classic cars."

Sam sank to the floor in front of the sofa, his gargoyle body perching comfortably, "It actually doesn't follow the book that closely," he began, before being "Shhhhhh!"-ed at by the other three.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

It was quiet. Too quiet.

He'd expected to come back to a small, self-contained riot, four idjits who'd been stuck in a car for hours blowing off steam. He'd been prepared for shouting, wrestling, broken furniture, possibly even tears before bedtime. Not this eerie peace. Even giggling and a pillow fight would make him feel happier…

He stayed in the car, reaching for his gun as the door opened a fraction. A shaggy head peered out, checking for witnesses, then disappeared.

A moment later, a gargoyle flapped quickly up onto the roof and began to poke at the antenna, moving it around until a ragged chorus of cheers sounded from the room.

The gargoyle quickly made its way back down and scuttled back inside.

Bobby was greeted by the sight of all four idjits watching the TV. Tiem sat on the sofa, utterly engrossed. Zan clutched at his big brother's arm. Dean perched next to them, and Sam perched on the floor.

"Chow's here," he announced.

"Shhhhhhhh!" hissed four voices at him.

Dean slid off the sofa to make room for him. "Sit and watch, Bobby," he said, "It's just starting to get good."

Pizza then snack food was consumed in silence, broken by the occasional startled gasp from Zan or sigh of admiration from Tiem. Sam and Dean perched completely still.

The amazing thing about quantum idjitlarity, he mused, was that it was predictable in some ways, yet utterly unpredictable in others. You could predict where an idjit would be, but couldn't necessarily know what that idjit would be doing. On the other hand, if you couldn't see the idjit, you had a pretty good idea of what it wa probably doing…

In an alternative universe, the history of events diverged slightly as yet another possible future branched off…

_Bobby would remember this evening's musings years later, when Sam had gone back to Stanford then on to Yale, and Dean had scaled back his work at his Classic cars restoration workshop to spend more time judging (the man who had bred a line of prize-winning show and working Rottweilers from the legendary founding dog, Winchester Sex God, was sought internationally by organisers of prestigious dog shows). When Bobby decided to go back to school, and took an interest in mathematics, later switching to physics – his theoretical model of fundamental particles, first developed in his PhD thesis and continued during his years lecturing at M.I.T., came to be known as 'Singer's Gargoyle'. On Friday afternoons, the cluster of his brightest students, collectively known as The Idjits, would sometimes speculate over beer on what the old guy had been smoking when he first used the idea of a gargoyle with a ribbon around its dick locked in a large car with the windows blacked out as a thought experiment…_

In the Jimiverse, Bobby just rested his beer on Dean's head, snagged a bag of corn chips, and watched the movie.

* * *

><p>I very much hope to spy, with my little eye, some things beginning with: R.<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Bobby fished his phone out.

_*click*_

The sight was just too adorable not to capture for posterity.

Zan had been spooked by the movie 'Christine', and had been unable to sleep. Tiem, in big brother mode, had let him crawl into his bed, and cuddled protectively around him. They were like that when Bobby arose, snuggled contentedly together, peaceful expressions on their faces.

He let himself into the room the Winchesters were occupying.

"Are you going to tell me where this came from?" he growled when Dean handed him some bills to get breakfast.

Dean looked utterly unrepentant. "There was this dealer in the alley, and he dropped it when he ran away," he answered smugly.

"I thought I told you to stay put last night," he griped, "Not go scarin' the locals."

"I only scared him a little bit," Dean protested, waggling his phallus lewdly. "He must've been a vicar on a day off. Now, let there be waffles! Let there be pie! Let there be coffee!"

"I'll just ask Tiem and Zan if they're hungry," Sam offered. "Zan will definitely want coffee. Hey, guys," he headed for the other room, "Do you want… oh, man," he practically wailed, "You couldn't put something on before you did that?"

"What?" Dean followed his brother. "Oh, God, it's worse than the ass massaging." He slumped in defeat. "What is it with gargoyles, naked and touching?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

While Bobby went to fetch some local ingredients for the counter-spell, Sam was pecking carefully at the laptop with taloned hands. "Okay, here's the list of cases of man-statue swaps, you read 'em out, Zan, and I'll mark each one on the map here… Dean, what are you doing?"

"I'm coaching Tiem in the intricacies of commerce," answered Dean. He stood behind the small bench of the kitchenette. The other laptop had two windows open: one showed a picture of a bottle of bourbon, the other a picture of a bottle of beer. "Now, Tiem, I am the 'cashier', and you are the 'customer'. You want to buy some of this," he pointed to the two pictures on the screen, at which Tiem dutifully peered, "And some of this, so you go to the shelves and get one of these, and a six pack of these, then you bring them to the cashier at the front of the store…"

"Could you teach me to buy coffee?" asked Zan, a little plaintively, with a small shudder. He'd drained the cup Bobby gave him for breakfast in a few gulps, and delivered a scathing critique of said beverage.

"Sure, it's pretty much the same…"

"Dean," warned Sam, "I don't think it's a good idea sending them out."

"Well, we can't go out like this," Dean gestured to the granite form he was currently inhabiting.

"Well, just wait," Sam insisted. "Zan, stop jiggling. Here, you can have the laptop. Provided you don't play Angry Birds any more. Chat to your coffee friends, or something."

Zan and Tiem practised paying for things a bit more, while Dean channel surfed. "Hey!" he called suddenly, "There's a Mad Max-a-thon!"

"What's a Mad Max?" asked Tiem.

"Does it have coffee?" asked Zan.

"It's cars, Tiem," grinned Dean. "Just watch, and listen…"

By the time the Last Of The V8 Interceptors made its appearance, Dean was adding engine noises and Tiem was hooked. Sam was still poring over the map. Zan humphed. He wanted coffee, but Bobby wasn't expected back for some time.

Quietly, he sat down, and started to tap at the other laptop. Such an amazing thing, this internet, so much information. Pictures. Articles. Entire books. Ways to talk to people with similar interests. Directories of addresses. Maps to show you addresses. Maps to show you exactly how to get from one address to another…

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby returned a couple of hours later, with some local items including some ash from the site of Grandma Gracie's pie shop. Again, an unexpected peace reigned: Dean and Tiem were watching the TV, and Sam was planning their garden raids for the evening. Yup, it was quiet.

Too quiet…

"You boys keepin' out of trouble?" he asked.

"Yes, Bobby," came the obedient replies.

"Good, good," he mused, looking around. "Maybe we can organise some lunch." He looked around the room again. "As soon as we find Zan."

Sam looked up. "Isn't he in the bathroom?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Zan smiled to himself – it had been a tight squeeze through the window, but he'd made it. He headed for the coffee shop the internet had directed him to.

He smiled politely at the girl behind the counter, and ordered his drink. He'd thought about this; he would test it first, then if it turned out to be all right, he would buy coffee for the others, go back and surprise them.

He paid for his coffee, then watched, mesmerised, as a middle-aged man tended the machine: it steamed, gurgled and hissed, producing his coffee. He paid for it, tasted it, and made a face.

"No," he said out loud, "No, no, no."

"Is something wrong?" the girl asked.

"Well, it's bitter, for a start," he said, wrinkling his nose, "So there's probably not enough grounds. The grind may be wrong for your machine," he continued, raising his voice so the man who'd made it could hear him. "Yerk... I'm sorry, it's pretty awful."

"Um," she didn't seem to know what to say to that. "I can get you another one, maybe?"

"It'll probably be just as bad as this one," he replied gloomily, as the middle-aged man approached.

"Is there a problem?" he asked in a challenging tone.

"Well, yes," replied Zan. "I'm afraid your coffee is terrible." He gazed sadly into his cup. "Do you grind your own beans?"

"You don't like it, you don't gotta drink it," bristled the man.

"No, I won't," sighed Zan. He craned his neck to look longingly at the machine. "Is that a San Marino?" he asked. "With the solenoid controlled hot water, and the brass filter holders? Wow, I've read about them..."

"You think you can do better, smartass, be my guest," the barista bowed mockingly.

Zan gaped in astonishment. "Really?" His face lit up into a wonderful smile – he didn't wait to be asked twice. He elbowed the astonished man aside, and stood, hopping from one foot to the other, in front of the gleaming coffee machine.

"It's even better than its picture," he breathed. He seemed to pull himself together, then started fiddling with dials. "First of all, the pressure isn't high enough," he muttered, "No wonder it tastes bitter..." He turned and peered at the coffee grinder, sniffing suspiciously. "Your beans are stale," he announced, frowning, "And your grind is too coarse." He emptied the hopper, fished under the counter for a new bag. "Don't buy such big bags," he told the bewildered barista, "No wonder they go stale. Find something airtight to put the rest of these in." He shoved the bag of beans into the gaping man's arms. "Where's your tamper? Don't tell me you weren't even tamping the grounds?" He rolled his eyes with a very put-upon humph. "All right, I think this will work better..."

The grinder ground. The steamer steamed. The filter filtered. The solenoids... solenoided. And lo, coffee was brought forth. Zan sniffed, sipped, sucked, swished, swirled, swallowed...

And smiled.

"That's better!" he announced happily.

"Um," said the girl, "Can we, er, can we have our machine back?" She gestured apologetically. "Only there's people wanting, um, coffee..."

Behinde her, a waitress timidly waved her pad at the earnest giant who had commandeered the coffee brewer. She had to admit, though, when he smiled, he had the most adorable dimples, and he was kind of well built, and, yeah, kind of hot...

"Of course!" he told her. "What do they want?"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Where could he be? Where could he be?" Tiem wrung his hands anxiously.

"How long ago did he go into the bathroom?" asked Bobby.

"I don't know!" replied Sam, bemusedly, "I was working on our gnome-napping mapping!"

"Well, he can't have gone far," Dean surmised glumly. "God, where do we even start?"

"I suppose we could look for local news of something strange happening," humphed Sam, "He'll probably be right in the middle of it. I mean, not wanting to be rude, but you guys can be as, well, as clueless as Cas in some ways."

"He's normally sensible," continued Tiem, "Why would he do something so silly?"

"Coffee," Dean remembered, "He wanted me to teach him how to buy coffee."

"Oh, no," moaned Bobby, "He could be anywhere..."

"Why don't we start with coffee shops, cafes, diners, in the local area," suggested Sam, talons flying across the laptop, "He probably didn't go too far... ah."

"Ah?" echoed Dean. "Is that 'Ah' as in, 'Aha!', or 'Uh' as in 'Uh-oh'?"

"Probably a bit of both," Sam told him, turning the laptop around. "There's this tweet from a coffee shop a few blocks from here. 'OMG started my shift – Gorgeous Giant Guy just waltzed in, elbowed Tony off the coffee machine, and took over! LOL!' And there's another one. 'Yay! Coffee is way better than Tony's brown sewage. Gorgeous AND talented! *drool*'." He scanned the screen. "Er, there are a lot of tweets coming out of that place," he went on. 'ZOMG coffee is actually DRINKABLE today! And G.G.G. is edible *g*'."

"Show me that," grumbled Dean, scanning the screen. " 'Coffee here is excellent today – for a change.' 'G.G.G. just drew a froth flower on my latte, so cyoot!' 'Tasty tasty tasty. So's the coffee. LOL!' " He looked up. "I'd say that Gorgeous Giant Guy is probably actually Gorgeous Giant Gargoyle."

Bobby sighed. "I'll go get him."

"Hey Bobby!" called Dean, as the old Hunter headed out the door. "Get me a triple shot espresso while you're there!"

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The place was busy. A lot of people were on their lunch break, and apparently, word about the G.G.G. and the suddenly much improved coffee had travelled quickly (several women were earnestly tapping at or speaking into their phones as he watched). Bobby made his way to the side of a slightly shell-shocked looking man in an apron.

"Are you Tony?" he asked.

"He just took over," said Tony the Banished Barista in a vague voice, "He just walked in, and took over…"

"And the customers love it!" giggled a waitress as she scooted past.

Bobby sighed. Zan was running the machine at full capacity, juggling filters, jugs and various baristic implements that he never knew existed. He swapped steaming cups for new orders with the waitresses. They slapped his backside as they passed him. The customers oohed and aahed – one lady professed a desire to adopt him. His face was a picture of fulfilled, contented concentration.

Zan was among His People.

"Tara, that's two lattes, one decaf mocha, a triple shot espresso, a mugaccino and a cappuccino," he called breezily. He spotted Bobby. "Bobby!" his smile was radiant, but his hands never stopped coffeeing. "What can I make for you?"

"Actually, Zan," said Bobby cautiously, "I'm here to, er, fetch you home."

Zan's face formed an expression perilously close to a bitchface. "No," he said primly, "I'm afraid that won't be possible, Bobby, we're far too busy." He smiled again as a giggling waitress slapped his ass again.

"We?" queried Bobby. "What do you mean 'we'? You don't work here, Zan! This is Tony's job!"

"Well, he wasn't doing it properly," replied Zan a little snippily.

"Zan, you are not a barista!" insisted Bobby.

"Apparently, neither is Tony," retorted Zan, in what was the most snide thing Bobby had ever heard him say.

Tony just whimpered in the corner, twisting his hands in his apron.

"Balls," muttered Bobby, sinking into a seat. Zan was already ignoring him, returned to his order notes, grinding and tamping and steaming and frothing and thanking customers and giggling as waitresses slapped his butt. Well, it was harmless enough, Bobby decided, pulling out his phone.

"Dean? Yeah, I found him. He's making coffee. No, making coffee. This could take a while…"

A waitress appeared, and put a steaming mug in front of him, with a large shortbread cookie on the saucer. "On the house," she told him, "As a thank you, for letting Zan stay." Bobby looked down. There was a smiley face drawn in the froth on the top. It had a beard.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"He's making coffee," relayed Dean. "Apparently, he didn't like the coffee, so he elbowed the guy out of the way, commandeered the machine, and is giving free rein to The Frustrated Barista Within."

"Oh, God," Sam let his head fall to the table.

"Is Zan all right?" asked Tiem anxiously.

"He certainly looks happy," commented Dean, looking at the laptop. Pictures of the G.G.G. (now morphed from Gorgeous Giant Guy to Gorgeous Grinder God) had started popping up on Twitter. "Bobby thinks it might just be best to let him get it out of his system."

"So, what do we do?" asked Sam, peering bewilderedly as his smiling face looked out of the laptop screen, tea towel over one shoulder.

"We take advantage of the opportunity to deploy Operation Buy Booze!" declared Dean. "Tiem? You're going shopping!"

"We've already lost one, Dean," Sam told him, "I don't think it's a good idea…"

Tiem was excitedly pulling his boots on. "What do you want me to buy?" he asked eagerly.

"Beer and JD, just like I showed you," Dean instructed. Tiem checked his money, squared his shoulders, and opened the door. "I'll be straight back," he promised.

"And don't forget, if there's a hot chick, get her number!" Dean called after him.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

He found the liquor store easily – gargoyles were good navigators. Feeling proud of himself, he quickly located the required bottles and took them to the counter.

"Can I help you with that?" purred a young woman at the register. Something seemed to be wrong with her eyes - he wondered why she kept blinking them like that. Maybe it was because of all the coloured stuff smeared around them…

"I would like to buy these, please," he told her. She smiled; her expression suggested that she might like to eat him. Not surprising, he thought, because she seemed quite thin – her legs just went up and up – except for a large bust, which he got a very good look at when she leaned forwards on the counter. Wasn't she cold, with the neckline of her top pulled down that far?

"Thank you," he said politely, as she handed over her change. He smiled to himself; it had gone off without a hitch, Dean would be so pleased…

He bumped into someone, and jumped backwards. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" he said anxiously.

"No, my fault, I wasn't watching where I was going," said the young woman, giving him a quick apologetic smile.

Tiem stared at her. She was extremely interesting.

She was shaped like a generously voluptuous Venus figurine, in complete contrast to the starved looking one behind the counter, but what really caught his interest was…

"You have an interesting smile," he blurted out.

She looked up at him. "Oh, these," she sighed, "I know, I'm a bit old for braces, but well, we couldn't afford them when I was a kid, and my teeth were even worse before I got them…"

"There's nothing wrong with them," he said, fascinated by the shiny metal and wires. "You have a lovely smile. You should smile more."

She peered up at him suspiciously. "Did somebody put you up to this?" she demanded.

"What? No!" he stuttered. "I'm sorry," he apologised, feeling his face flush, "I didn't mean to be rude. I just saw your lovely smile, and… I'm sorry. I'll go now." He gave her an apologetic look.

"No, wait," she put a hand on his arm. "I'm the one who should be apologising," she said, "I'm just… not used to good-looking guys even noticing I exist. Let alone telling me they like my smile."

"Then, you _should_ smile more," he said emphatically. He noticed how the rims of her thick glasses matched the metal on her teeth – they made her eyes look large, he thought, like the Impala's headlights – and found himself smiling at her too. "The good-looking guys will have to line up."

She laughed at that. "I'm Kelly," she said, sticking out a hand.

He knew about this ritual. He took hold of her hand and shook it carefully. "Tiem," he replied. He looked thoughtful, then reached for his pocket. "Kelly," he went on, "I hope you will not think me rude, but… may I have your number? Please?"

Dean was going to be _really_ pleased.

* * *

><p>Ignore that noise coming from the laundry - it's Ciya and Leahelisabeth, insisting that they want to lick cappuccino froth from off Sam. I had to shut them in. They were unclear as to whether or not this is to take place after arse massaging... what? Some of you want to lick froth off Dean? Dear me, it all sounds most unsanitary.<p>

Reviews are the Angry Birds launched at the Evil Pigs Of Life! (I believe I may be the only person in my building at work who is not addicted to that game.)


	10. Chapter 10

We're getting there, srsly... aeicha, I do not Tweet. I have NFI how to drive Twitter. I have a very old phone, and rarely use it. I don't even do facebook. I haven't even put anything in my LiveJournal, er, journal, yet. I'm a bit mystified by the whole concept of Twitter; I cannot imagine that anyone would be at all interested in the thoughts that pop into my head at random times of the day. I'm a bit of a Luddite with That Sort Of Thing. I don't even like coffee. One day, they're going to take away my Scientist Card.

* * *

><p><strong>SPECIAL BONUS FEATURE: DELETED SCENE FROM CHAPTER 9<strong>

_knock knock knock_

**Dean****:** ? ? ? *He twitches the curtains. Outside the door stand two women with a jug of frothy milk, and salacious leers.*

**Dean****:** OMG Zan quick! Hide!

**Zan:** Why do I need to hide?

**Dean****:** Because the Samlickers are here!

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK BANG_

*one hinge of the door gives way*

**Dean****:** Quick! Into the bathroom!

*Sound of a breaking window from the bathroom, Sam sprints out, slams door, leans on it.*

**Sam:** OMG Dean! Hide Tiem! It's Deanlickers! They have frothy milk!

**Dean:** Aaaaaaargh!

**Sam:** Quick in here! *Bundles Tiem and Zan into closet*

**Tiem:** Um, look, maybe if we just let them do a bit of, er, licking, they'll be happy and go away?

**Sam and Dean:** NO! ! !

*Various Winchesterlickers burst into the room, brandishing jugs of frothy milk, tins of sprinkly chocolate and spatulas.*

**Aeisha:** Where are they? *waves spatula threateningly*

**Leahelisabeth:** Come out, come out, wherever you are…

**Paralesky:** We promise not to hurt you. Unless you want us to.

**Elf:** *smiles in a slightly predatory way at gargoyles* You guys might not want to watch this.

*Sam and Dean clutch one another in terror*

**Sam and Dean:** WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

*Bartlebead brandishes a length of pink wrapping ribbon. Sam throws up. Dean faints.*

**PaulatheCat:** sniff, sniff – meow, I smell… coffee!

*Winchesterlickers form tight semicircle around the closet door. Door opens slowly. Zan and Tiem wave.*

**Zan and Tiem.** Um, hello.

*Winchesterlickers close in, sounds of tearing clothing, Bartlebead ties a beautiful bow.*

*shenanigans ensues.*

*Sam screams and shakes uncontrollably. Dean wakes up and wets himself. They drag each other into the bathroom to hide.*

*Winchesterlickers run out of froth and chocolate and wander away high-fiving each other.*

**Zan:** Well, that wasn't so bad. They were very friendly, weren't they?

**Tiem:** It kind of tickled, I thought. What nice ladies.

**Zan:** I feel very… clean.

**Tiem: **That chocolate tasted good.

**Zan:** Whoever frothed the milk did a good job. Your bow looks nice.

**Tiem: **It does, doesn't it? *waggles bow* We should probably put some more clothes on before Bobby gets back. I'll leave the bow, though.

**Zan:** I got another massage, too. It was very relaxing. What a shame they had to go.

**Tiem:** Well, one of them said she had something very important to do.

**Zan:** Yes. 'Upload to YouTube', sounds very official, doesn't it?

**Tiem:** Maybe she works for the government. Anyway, it would have been rude to detain her.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

Zeb Basserton – or 'Boozerton', as locals called him – was ninety-three, insomniac, and proud to be ornery. He kept a pellet rifle by the front door for those occasions when next door's cats, or children, got too close to his petunias. He'd outlived his childhood friends, his enlistment buddies, his workmates, and most of his bowling club. He figured he'd earned the right to be a Grumpy Old Man. Especially with those damned cats crapping in the rhododendrons.

Lots of things annoyed Zeb (besides next door's cats and brats). Caterpillars on his roses. Child-proof lids. Scratchy toilet paper. Telemarketers. Jehovah's Witnesses. His doctor, who kept telling him to give up drinking – Zeb figured that if his liver hadn't given out yet, it was just staying functional out of pure spite, to piss that young jerk in a white coat off. The so-called music they played these days – it was all angry black men wearing women's jewellery, and gyrating women with their titties practically hanging out. The stupid little light-up fairy in next door's yard – his pellet popper just didn't have the range to take its dementedly smirking little head off. Shopping carts. Political advertising. Kids wearing their pants so low he could see their shorts, hitch your damned pants up, you fools... Small yappy dogs wearing stupid costumes. Coy advertising for 'continence aids' – call 'em piss pads and be done, for Christ's sake... Political correctness – he reserved the right to sing Baa Baa Goddamned Black Sheep with his great-grandchildren, _and_ read them the story of Little Black Sambo and the tigers who turned into butter (the munchkins loved both those things, and damned if he was going to let some pantywaist do-gooder tell him he might hurt somebody's feelings. Some people just needed to drink a nice hot cup of get the fuck over yourself). Insomnia.

That really annoyed him, these nights when he just couldn't sleep, and he was here like this, sitting on the porch in the wee small hours, wide awake, watching the night. Still, it was kind of peaceful. And he would always have the pellet rifle, and next door's cats...

He took a swig from the bottle of Scotch – it was good stuff, because he figured he couldn't take his money with him, so he might as well spend it while he was alive – then sat up, alert, as he heard a car rumble down the street.

She was a beauty, a Chevy Classic, and somebody obviously took care of her. He nodded approvingly, as he watched the car pull up in front of next door.

A small, squat figure climbed out, stretched its wings (what the hell?), and waddled on short, stumpy legs into next door's yard, keeping to the shadows. It uprooted the fairy light, and scuttled back to the car, throwing the garden ornament into the trunk, then climbing back in. The car rumbled away.

Zeb picked up his bottle, and contemplated it. Either he'd just seen a gargoyle get out of a Chevy and abduct a light-up garden fairy, or there was some really, really interesting shit in the water in Scotland.

He sat out on the porch for a bit longer, hoping the car would come back and abduct a cat or two, but of course his luck wouldn't be that good. Nonetheless, he raised his bottle to toast gargoyles everywhere, real or imagined, then he went back inside, making a mental note to buy a whole case of the stuff next time.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"That's all of them," said Dean, placing the last lawn ornament in the close-set ranks of yard decorations. It was plain disturbing: it was supposed to be a fairy that lit up and look ethereally and mysteriously beautiful, but it actually ended up looking like a cross-eyed midget who'd eaten fireflies and escaped from the nuthouse wearing nothing but a short nightie (presumably having been locked up for demonstrating a desire to eat fireflies, and run around in public in sheer sleepware).

Bobby surveyed the garden gnomes, fairies, squirrels and one three-legged flamingo that had been affected by the curse, arrayed in close set ranks in the park.

"It's creepy," continued Dean, "I'm telling you, garden gnomes are evil. They sit there, watching people come and go, watching, thinking, planning…"

"They're just stone or concrete, Dean," Sam told him, knocking on a gnome's head. "Just solid inorganic matter, with nothing going on in there. A bit like you, really."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Bobby handed out cheap digital watches he'd synchronised, and they went over the plan. Zan and Tiem would stay with the car at the park, to sprinkle the curse-breaking brew on the arrayed ornaments. Sam, being able (and willing) to fly, would deal with the one furthest away, a fountain on the other side of town. Bobby would deal with a statue in a public square, and Dean would head for a nearby churchyard, where the vicar had mysteriously been found dead, having exchanged places with a stone angel in front of the church.

"What exactly will happen when the curse breaks?" asked Zan, inspecting the gallon jug of brew he was holding.

Bobby scratched his head. "Well, accordin' to Feathers, the trapped souls will be released, and you'll be whisked out of the wrong body, then you'll whizz back to where your own body is, and snap back into it," he answered. "So, as soon as that happens, Zan and Tiem, you fly straight back here, get in the car with Dean and Sam, and come get me."

"Yes, Bobby," they chorused.

"Okay, then." Bobby checked his timer watch. "We got about... twenty minutes to get into position. We gotta get this right – start spraying that stuff around the second the alarms go off." He set off, Sam leapt into the air and headed west, and Dean started waddling in the direction of the church.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Travelling by gargoyle legs totally sucked, Dean decided. They really had never been intended to walk anywhere. The trip to the church was not far, but he arrived with only a couple of minutes to spare.

"The first thing I'm going to do when I get back into my own body," he muttered to himself, "Is go for a walk without fucking waddling. No, the first thing I'm going to do, is get laid. Then I'll go for a walk. Maybe I'll walk to a bar, and find a girl there, then get laid..."

He reached the church, and made his way to the front yard, where the statue was...

Only, it wasn't.

He blinked. He blinked again. The statue, which Bobby had scoped out early that morning, stubbornly persisted in its absence.

He said a rude word, then checked the other doors of the church. Still not finding it, he swore again. Loudly.

He glanced up as his swearing startled a bird roosting in the eaves – and saw the statue.

The statue, as they would find out from a local paper the next day, had only been down at ground level when the vicar died so that it could be cleaned. That very day, it had finally been hoisted aloft, back to its perch on the roof of the church. There was a picture of the truck-mounted crane that had been brought in to assist the steeplejacks in reinstalling it. It was very impressive. A large part of the congregation had gathered to watch the church's guardian angel be returned to its vantage point.

Sixty feet off the ground.

Dean groaned. He checked his watch: two minutes to go.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

He thought about closing his eyes, then decided against it. Gritting his teeth, he tried to remember the advice that Zan and Tiem had offered.

Clutching his bottle of decursing brew, he grimaced in concentration, and began to flap his wings.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby was particularly looking forward to getting this curse lifted. He was pretty sure that if he had to spend too much longer dealing with the sort of idjitlarity the four chuckleheads were capable of generating, his head would explode. Or he'd just wake up one day, and wander downstairs with his shorts on his head and insist that everybody address him as the Maharajah of Swat.

He arrived at the statue with a few minutes to spare, breathing hard. He wasn't a young man, he thought ruefully, but he was on time. All that had to happen now was for the idjits to get their parts timed right...

It was dark. He was sticking to the shadows, staying out of sight, just in case. So it wasn't entirely surprising that he didn't find the patch of torn up pavers under repair until he'd turned an ankle and landed sprawled full length.

"Balls," he muttered, getting up and dusting himself off. So much for stealth.

His annoyance at himself turned to alarm when he looked around for his jug of cursebusting brew.

The plastic bottle had broken open when it hit the ground – as he watched in horror, the last trickle oozed away into the ground under the pavers.

"Oh, balls," he said more desperately. He scrabbled for his phone, trying to remember if any of the others had taken them.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Zan was watching his watch count down attentively when a phone on the front seat of the Impala chirped into life. Cautiously, Tiem answered it.

"Hello?" he said into it.

"I've spilled my brew." Bobby didn't bother with any pre-amble. "Who's that?"

"It's Tiem," he answered, "The phone was in the car, and it rang."

Bobby swore impressively on the other end of the line. "We're screwed," he fumed. "I've screwed the pooch."

"What will we do?" Tiem asked worriedly.

"The boys will find out when it doesn't work," Bobby told him in a defeated tone. "We'll just have to go home, and try again." He swore some more. "It could take a while, that brew ran out my stocks of some things..."

"Oh, no," sighed Tiem, jamming his other hand into the pocket of Dean's coat. They'd stood around in the cold, which human bodies weren't very good for, and now they'd have to do it all again...

His hand closed on something in the pocket. He pulled it out.

A set of keys. Car keys.

A determined look crossed his face.

"Hang on Bobby!" he yelled into the phone, already moving, "I'm coming! I'll bring you more brew!"

"Tiem, you'll never make it in time, not even in Dean's body..."

"Just hold on, Bobby, I'll be right there!"

"What's happening?" asked Zan.

"Bobby spilled his brew," explained Tiem quickly, "I have to take him some more. You'll have to sprinkle all the garden gnomes here." He grabbed up his plastic jug, ran to the other side of the car, yanked open the door, and slid behind the wheel.

Zan's eyes widened with horror. "TIEM!" he shouted, "YOU CAN'T DRIVE!"

"I might be able to," Tiem replied defensively, "I've just never tried." He patted the wheel, and spoke to the car in the language they shared as things drawn from the Earth...

He turned the key. The starter motor turned. The engine roared into life.

The Impala shot backwards out of the park, swung around on the wrong side of the road, and headed out with a squeal of spinning wheels and no lights.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Bobby sat feeling utterly furious with himself. He was so busy calling himself every name under the sun that he didn't notice the roaring of an engine heading in his direction as soon as he might have done otherwise.

Just as he was moving back into the shadows, wondering what sort of an idjit would be out in the middle of the night abusing what sounded like a big engine in a cruel and unusual fashion, a car skidded around a corner, the rear quarter panel taking out a line of trash cans that clattered across the street, and headed directly for him.

The car was clearly being driven by somebody who was used to travelling in straight lines: the amount of foliage, mulch and a traffic sign adorning it suggested that it had driven straight over a number of the carefully landscaped roundabouts he had passed on the way. It sported a mail box shaped like a cow as a hood ornament. It trailed what looked like a string of laundry from one mirror.

As it approached, he noticed two things:

Firstly, it was Dean Winchester's Impala. And Dean Winchester was apparently at the wheel, although his expression was decidedly more manic than usual.

Secondly, the car wasn't really slowing down much.

He started waving his arms. "Brakes!" he shouted, "Brakes, Tiem, BRAKES! OTHER PEDAL, YOU DAMNED IDJIT!"

He leaped out of the way as the car skidded, rubber screeching and wheels locked, finally coming to rest and stalling when the front fender bumped up against the statue.

Tiem sat behind the wheel, his expression positively post-coital. "I brought you more brew," he smiled.

Bobby yanked the passenger side door open, grabbed the jug, and checked the count-down on his watch.

Five, four, three, two, one...

_Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep_

He tore the lid off the jug, and sloshed a generous amount of the brew at the statue.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" Dean couldn't stop the cry of horror that escaped from him as he rose unsteadily into the air with all the grace and co-ordination of a wasp that's crawled in and out of too many nearly empty beer bottles. He flapped desperately, hugging the side of the building, struggling to maintain trim while gaining altitude. After what seemed like a terrifying eternity, he rose to the small ledge the statue was perched on, and scrambled to perch next to it.

"Don'tlookdown don'tlookdown don'tlookdown," he chanted to himself, clinging to the ledge and the bottle of brew, trying to get his breathing under control. He just had to hang on, splash the statue, then he'd be whisked away and zapped back into his own body, so much more reassuringly close to sea level...

_Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep_

With a relieved sigh, he pulled the lid off the bottle and carefully doused the statue.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep_

Sam opened the jug, and sloshed it liberally over the figure forming the fountain, tipping a bit into the water for good measure. He would miss flying, but, well, he wouldn't miss seeing himself naked. He put down the bottle, and waited to zap back to his own body, hoping that it wouldn't be suffering too badly from the caffeine jitters.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep_

Zan desperately sprayed the brew around, trying to get all the ornaments. It would've been easier if his big brother was there, but right now, he was trying not to think too hard about his big brother, who had gone careering off into the darkness in Dean's car.

He kept sloshing until the big plastic bottle was empty, then inspected the ranks of statues. He seemed to have gotten at least a bit of the stuff on each one.

He sat down, and waited worriedly to be zapped back to his own body.

* * *

><p>Reviews are the Chocolatey Froth on the Nekkid Winchesters of Life. You sick, sick individuals.<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

Well, here we are, finally, at the last chapter. Huzzah! Kudos to Leahelisabeth for figuring out where this was going...

I only have one question: which one of you perverts took the opportunity to do some surreptitious Sam ass massaging in that deleted scene?...

Bartlebead, I'm a biochemist by training, although my job these days consists mainly of stomping around telling other people to clean up after themselves.

PaulatheCat, I too disapprove of using pellet guns to shoo cats from the garden – there are granules you can sprinkle to discourage them – however if small annoying children stray where they shouldn't, they're fair game.

For those who were concerned for the wellbeing of Baby, bear in mind that Tiem spent the road trip watching every move Bobby made while driving, so she really wasn't in any danger. All the foliage caught in the front fender meant that she didn't even get a ding when she nudged the statue.

Now, onward! Follow me, Denizens, Visitors, Lurkers and Lickers! For Comrades, Country, and GWN!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

The important thing, Bobby pointed out a number of times afterwards, the_ important_ thing, was that it had worked. Everybody was back in their own bodies, the trapped souls were freed, job done.

Dean was gibbering because he'd had to fly, then he'd had to cope with seeing his Baby looking like a rolling billboard for a manic depressive abstract landscaper. Sam was gibbering because Zan had filled his body with enough caffeine to keep a buildingful of computer programmers going for a week. BUT – they were back in their own bodies.

Yes, technically, not everything had gone exactly according to expectation. In his own defence, Bobby pointed out that he'd had to work under conditions of extreme aggravation and distraction while he was concocting the curse-breaking potion. Or maybe they just got something not exactly right when they were devising the counter-spell – after all, Castiel was an angel, and never claimed omnipotence or omniscience. But it had worked. Amazingly, their efforts had been adequately co-ordinated, and it worked.

The fact that, instead of their selves being zapped back to their bodies, their bodies were zapped back to where the selves were, was a minor detail, unimportant in the general scheme of things.

The fact that it was just the bodies, and not the clothes they might've been wearing, that were zapped back to where the selves were was just an inconsequential minor technical glitch.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Psssssssssssss zzzzzzzzzzrt ppppfffffffffrt_

There was a noise suggestive of someone sitting on a large and particularly wet-sounding whoopee cushion...

It was disorientating, to say the least. Or maybe that was the coffee payload his unaccustomed body had on board.

All Sam knew was, one moment he was looking up at a fountain, the next, he was considerably further from the ground.

Oh, and he was naked. And his back teeth were wiggling.

He let out a small shriek, and scurried to hide in some nearby shrubbery.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Psssssssssssss zzzzzzzzzzrt ppppfffffffffrt_

There was a moment of weirdness, and Zan was suddenly a lot closer to the garden gnomes he was surveying. It had worked!

He jumped up in the air to turn an excited somersault; when his wings didn't unfurl due to the shirts he was wearing, he had a sudden flash of understanding as to what must have happened.

Quickly, he shucked out of Sam's clothes, bundled them up, and set off for the fountain across town as fast as his wings would carry him.

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Psssssssssssss zzzzzzzzzzrt ppppfffffffffrt_

Tiem barely noticed the noise, or the way he suddenly was looking through the steering wheel rather than over it. In the comfortable warm haze of his post-driving glow, he thought he could sit there forever, at the wheel of the Ferrous Goddess. He'd driven Baby. He could now die happy.

Bobby heard it, though, and rushed to peer into the Impala. His expression went from confusion, to calculation, to understanding, to amusement.

He cleared his throat. "Ordinarily, I'd say you're entitled to take your time, enjoy a cigarette, after your first time," he said in amusement, "But you're sittin' there enjoyin' your after-glow in Dean's clothes. Something tells me he's probably gonna want those right about now."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

_Psssssssssssss zzzzzzzzzzrt ppppfffffffffrt_

"Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshitOHSHITOHSHII IIIIIIAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

It wasn't so much a case of 'out of the frying pan, into the fire', as 'out of the perching gargoyle body, into the dangling human body. The dangling OH GOD NAKED human body'.

The ledge was barely big enough for the statue, let alone a gargoyle. It certainly wasn't big enough for Dean, naked or otherwise. Which is how he came to be dangling by his fingertips, sixty feet above the ground, from a small ledge on the church roof.

"YeeeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAAAARGH HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALP!" he shrieked, as his fingers lost grip on the damp, moss-crusted stone. "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OOOOOOOOOOHSHIIIIIIIIIIIT..."

Many who had known Dean were convinced that he had a suicidal streak. The few who knew him well knew that it was not exactly 'suicidal', more a 'complete disregard for his own well-being in the face of possibly being able to save somebody else' streak. Dean's preparedness to ignore his own safety did NOT extend to dying of gravity after falling sixty feet from a slippery ledge. Not while naked, anyway. It wouldn't be the impact that would kill him; sheer embarrassment at the situation would cause his death before he'd actually hit the ground.

So when his desperately scrabbling hands finally lost their tenuous hold, he kicked backwards off the wall as hard as he could, aiming for the large tree growing next to the church...

Maybe just thinking hard enough about flying helped him make the couple of extra feet to grab hold of a branch.

Okay, his gibbering mind giggled, definitely an improvement. No longer dangling naked sixty feet above the ground from a tiny ledge, now dangling naked a bit less than sixty feet above the ground from a branch, attached to a tree, with lots of other branches, so all he had to do was work his way inwards along the branch, the very green branch, the quite thin and decidedly springy branch, and...

There was an ominous sound of green wood tearing.

If anyone had been watching*, it would have looked like it happened in slow motion: the branch bent, bowed, and frayed, dropping him off it to hit the branch below it ass first. That branch bent, bowed, and gave way, dropping him ass first to the one underneath, which bent, and dropped him on his ass on the next one down.

"Ooooh! Aaaah! Ow! Fuck! Ow! Ow! OW! Yaargh!" Gravity warred with springy green foliage as Dean surfed the increasingly sturdy branches downward, ass thwacking into one branch after the next, not fast enough to be called 'falling', but definitely not slow or controlled enough to be called 'climbing'.

Eventually he ran out of branches, and landed with an ungainly thump on the ground.

Ass first.

Groaning, he stiffly made his way to hide in the hedge.

He was still muttering murderously to himself, itemising the things he was going to do to Bobby, when Tiem arrived, carrying his clothes, and wearing a suspiciously blissful smile on his face. He kept muttering as he dressed, and headed back to the park to meet up with the others. After Zan and Tiem took off back to the motel, he wouldn't have volunteered any details, except he had to explain why he decided to travel lying down in the back seat. The intensity of his muttering prevented Sam or Bobby from laughing at him. (They did that later, when he wasn't around.)

[*_As it turned out, somebody was watching. A twenty-something college student was still awake, messing around with the video camera she would have to use for the bulk of her work in Media Studies, reading the manual online, in her upstairs bedroom which had a view over the churchyard a couple of blocks away. She happened to be reading the sections entitled 'Using the Zoom' and 'Shooting At Night', when a faint yowl of "Shiiiiiit!" drifted in through the window on the night air. Peering through the view-finder, she gasped... and started filming._

_Two weeks later, when, by a completely circuitous set of circumstances during research, Sam followed a link called 'Totally Hot Naked Guy Dangling From Church OMG!', he laughed so hard that he ended up having a pseudo-asthmatic attack. Dean returned to their room a few minutes later, and Sam was wheezing and turning blue to the extent that Dean threatened him with a trip to the nearest E.R. Sam didn't show Dean the footage immediately, but bookmarked it and kept it for blackmailing purposes next time he wanted something_.]

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

The gargoyles decided to set off back to the yard the next day. Bobby decided that the humans would stay in the room for at least another day: Sam was suffering the consequences of coming down from Zan's caffeine binge, and Dean was suffering from the consequences of coming down a tree ass first. Neither of them was really ready for the long drive back to Singer Salvage, not with Sam's gastrointestinal symptoms, and Dean's, um, bruising...

"Forget it, Sam."

"Dean, don't be so damned stupid..."

"Get the hell away from me!"

"Dean, you'll be in enough discomfort on the way home as it is; this stuff will help. Just this once, be sensible!"

"I am being sensible! You're being a perv!"

"Don't flatter yourself - believe me, I'm not going to get any enjoyment out of this, but your squirming and hissing and martyred 'I'm fine'-ing all the way home would be even worse, so... drop 'em."

"Saaaaaaam..."

"Don't whine. This is for your own good."

"This is wrong on so many levels..."

"DEAN! I am NOT in the mood for your uptight attitude, all right? For the record, I'd rather do it with my eyes closed."

"But Sam..."

"Don't make me make you. That really would be getting weird."

"I really don't want this."

"You want Bobby to do it instead? 'Cause I can ask him. We can double team you."

"NO! Oh, God, bitch, I'll kill you for this, you so much as breathe a SINGLE WORD to ANYONE..."

"What? Oh, girlfriend, please, you think this is something I'm gonna put in my brag book?"

"..."

"Right. So, down trou, bro. Just lie there, and think of... who was that hot chick Tiem got a number for?"

"Kelly. He said she had a really nice smile, and beautiful eyes, and was built like aaAAAAIEEE IT'S COLD!"

"Sorry. Hold still! God, anyone would think I was torturing you."

"Sam, having your ass massaged by your baby brother is a _working definition_ of torture!"

"Huh, and you call me a drama queen."

"You touch the merchandise, baby bro, and I will jam that fucking bottle up_ your_ ass."

"Dean, just shut up. And unclench. Look on the bright side, at least you're not going to walk in on me massaging your ass..."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

**...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... **

Two days later, after Sam had stopped twitching and Dean had spent an evening with Kelly – of course, he'd never admit to Sam that 1) he'd nearly swallowed his own tonsils when he met her, 2) he'd covered his reaction remarkably well and in the end had actually had quite an enjoyable time talking to a woman instead of, yes, well, and 3) she'd whupped his fluffy butt at pool – Bobby decided that they would be tolerable enough to head back to the yard. It was with considerable relief that they were greeted by the sight of the gargoyles roosted on the gate posts – Zan and Tiem smiled and waved to them as they arrived.

Dean was in the yard, washing his Baby (and removing stray pieces of tanbark that kept turning up) when the delivery van pulled in the next day. A bored-looking man with a clipboard approached him. "Got a box here for Zan Singer," he said.

Bobby signed for his 'nephew' 's consignment, which turned out to be a crate with some Italian text on it. Bobby, Dean and Sam stood and stared at it.

"What the hell is it?" asked Dean, listening carefully. "It's not ticking."

Bobby sighed; he'd really hoped that things would get back to what passed for normal at Casa Singer. "Zan, Tiem," he called towards the gate, "Get your stony asses down here."

The two gargoyles swooped down to the ground, and bowed to Bobby.

"Zan," he asked, "You wanna tell me what this is?"

Sam's face suddenly froze. "Oh, no," he breathed, "You didn't find Ebay, did you?"

Zan shook his head, somersaulted excitedly, and gestured to his brother. Long, stone gargoyle arms quickly had the lid off the crate. Inside, shiny metal gleamed.

Zan grabbed a wad of paper, and quickly scanned it. He smiled even more widely, turned a quick somersault in the air, and handed the paper to Sam, who read it out aloud.

"Dear Zan," he began, "Congratulations! You are the winner of our Why I Love Coffee promotion! The judges were particularly impressed with your entry..."

Within the hour, the coffee machine was installed in a corner in Bobby's kitchen. Zan, standing on a chair, spun dials, swivelled filters, and produced marvellous coffee for everybody except Sam, who had a hot chocolate instead.

After that, Bobby would usually find a steaming mug of coffee waiting for him when he came down for breakfast in the morning – Zan would creep in, and make it for him after he and Tiem finished their last patrol of the yard before returning to roost on the gates as the sun came up. He would often make coffee for himself and his brother, too.

The funny thing was, nobody ever seemed to notice. Visitors came and went, but nobody ever asked Bobby why the two gargoyles on top of his gates were clutching travel mugs.

**THE END**

* * *

><p>Aaaaaaaaaaand another plot bunny bites the dust. Unfortunately, I saw another one hopping around, so I might go back and try and do something more with 'The Way Of Things', although I don't think it will really turn out to be humour as such.<p>

Oh, and if any of you get arrested for inappropriate licking at a convention sometime, don't blame me.

As ever, reviews are the Adorable Gargoyles roosting on the Gates Of Life!


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